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John S. Sargent 


HIS LIFE AND WORK 





John 5. Sargent 


HIS LIFE AND WORK 


BY 
William Howe Downes 
Author of 
The Life and Works of Winslow Homer, 


Twelve Great Artists, etc. 


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BOSTON 
LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY 


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Copyright, 1925, 
By Litre, Brown, anp Company. 


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All rights reserved 


PUBLISHED OCTOBER, 1925 








AUTHOR'S NOTE 


N this record of the life and work of John S. Sargent may 
| be found a mass of data forming the groundwork upon 

which the future historian of art may build. Mr. Sargent 
was kind enough to verify much of the material in the early 
summer of 1924, just before he left Boston for London. The 
author is much indebted to Mr. Thomas A. Fox for his cour- 
tesy in allowing the use of his list of Sargent’s works, with 
which the catalogue has been supplemented. For valuable and 
generous aid in the preparation of the catalogue special thanks 
are due to Mr. C. Powell Minnigerode, director of the Cor- 
coran Gallery of Art; Messrs. M. Knoedler & Company; and 
Mr. Walter Rowlands, formerly of the staff of the Boston 
Public Library. Acknowledgment is also to be made to the 
officers of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; the Brooklyn Art 
Museum, the Art Institute of Chicago, the New English Art 
Club, and other public art societies and museums; to Mrs. 
Sarah C. Sears, Mr. Charles K. Bolton, librarian of the Boston 
Athenaeum; Mr. Martin A. Ryerson, Mr. Royal Cortissoz, 
Mr. Holker Abbott, Mr. Frank W. Bayley, Mr. Martin Birn- 
baum, Mr. Robert C. Vose, and other individuals who have 


lent a helping hand. 





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CONTENTS 


PART I 


OUTLINE SKETCH OF SARGENT’S LIFE 


if. 


aie 


III. 


IV. 


VI. 


VII. 


The Sargent Family—Florence, 1856—1874— 
Paris, 1874—1884—Spain, 1880 


London in the Eighties—The Tite Street House 
—Broadway—Fladbury—Some Anecdotes . 


Carmencita—Mural Paintings Ordered—Fair- 
ford—Egypt and Greece — Beatrice Goelet — 
Academician—1 890-1897 


The Wertheimer Family Portraits—Copley Hall 
Exhibition—Canard—1 898-1899 


. “The Three Graces”—Diploma Work—A Year 


of Triumphs—Boston Exhibition of 1903—Pal- 
estine—Italy—1 900-191 3 


Somewhere in Austria—Boston Library Mural 
Work—Another One-man Show—The Canadian 
Rockies—Lake O’ Hara—1914-1916 . 


President Wilson—Gassed—Rockefeller—Ca- 
thedral of Arras—The Road—British Generals 
—More Mural Paintings—19 18-1922 


vil 


16 


31 


43 


54 


65 


73 


CONTENTS 


VIII. Generosity—Acumen—New York Sargent Show 
—Comparisons—The Painter’s Job—An Esti- 
Mate? ea. 9 eo kee Biles. 's-hes eeen ee es 


IX. Portrait Commissions Refused — Death of the 
Artist in 192 5—Service in Westminster Abbey— 


Dributest 2" aide eee kal eee ee 
X. Honors—Medals—Degrees—Orders . . . . 115 
PART II 
O1L PAINTINGS, STUDIES AND SKETCHES, 
WaTER CoLors AND DRAWINGS, WITH NOTES . . I17 
BAR EL 
BIBLIOGRAPH Ye in. (nee ee eres 


Vill 


ILLUSTRATIONS 


Ng 


Oyster Gatherers of Cancale [En Route pour la Péche ] 


Courtesy of Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, D. C. 


A Spanish Beggar Girl 
Paul Schulze Collection, Chicago 


Mrs. Charles Gifford Dyer 


Lady with a Rose [ Miss Burckhardt | 
Collection of Mrs. Harold F. Hadden, New York 


The Boit Children 


Courtesy of Museum of Fine hee Beton 


A Venetian Interior 
Courtesy of Carnegie Institute, Breen 


The Sulphur Match [Cigarette] . 


Collection of Mr. Louis Curtis, Boston 


Vénise par Temps Gris 
Collection of Sir Philip Sassoon, Tendon 


Madame X [ Madame Gautreau | 
Courtesy of Metropolitan Museum of Art, New Vere 


Carnation, Lily, Lily, Rose 
Courtesy of the Tate Gallery, London 


Venetian Glass Workers 
Collection of Mr. Martin A. epson Gree 


Mrs. Henry G. Marquand 
Collection of Mrs. Allan Marquand, Peeen nee yehay 


1x 


FACING 
PAGE 


8 


16 


24 
32 


40 


48 


ILLUSTRATIONS 


Mrs. Edward D. Boit 
Collection of the Misses Boit, Paris 


Mrs. Charles E. Inches 


Inches Collection 


Miss Ellen Terry as Lady Macbeth 
Courtesy of the Tate Gallery, London 


George Henschel, Esq. 
Collection of We Henschel, ewan 


Mrs. Davis and Her Son [ Mother and Child ] 


Collection of Mr. Livingston Davis, Boston 


Carmencita 
Luxembourg Museum, ne 


Miss Beatrice Goelet 
Collection of Mr. Robert Walton Goclen Nee aoe 


Mrs. Augustus Hemenway 
Collection of Mrs. Hemenway, Boston 


Coventry Patmore, Esq. ee 
Courtesy of Nedenal Portrait Gallery, Teniee 


The Honorable Laura Lister 
Collection of Lady Lovat, London 


Mrs. George Swinton 


Asher Wertheimer, Esq. 
Courtesy, of the National Gallery, Taman 


Mrs. Asher Wertheimer 
Courtesy of the National Gallery, iano 


General Sir Ian Hamilton 
Hamilton Collection 


FACING 
PAGE 


104 


IrZ 


120 


124 


ILLUSTRATIONS 


FACING 
PAGE 


Interior of a Palazzo in Venice [Venetian Interior] . 192 
Courtesy of the Royal Academy, Burlington House, London 


The Two Elder Daughters of Asher Wertheimer, Esq. 200 
Courtesy of the National Gallery, London 


The Younger Children of Asher Wertheimer, Esq. . . 208 
Courtesy of the National Gallery, London 


Miss Betty Wertheimer . . . teks Mees. set O 
Courtesy of the National Gallery, Penden 

Poroelsbplesdale. ©. ied te es ae ee ed 
Courtesy of the National ees Eoadnd 

The Ladies Alexandra, Mary,and Theo Acheson . . 232 


Collection of the Duke of Devonshire 


Pememmetenry Lee Hipsinson . . . . . =... . « 240 


Courtesy of the Harvard Union 


Mrs. Fiske Warren and Her vhs [ Mother and 


DEG SSS i er nea 
Warren Collection 

NMirsanaivirs, John W.Field ..... e250 
Courtesy of The Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine ee 

Lady Sassoon . . pes ae Seo aL 
Collection of Sir Philip Be ctis ee 

“ipeKountain ' . . ae <2 Notas secs ee Ree Te 

The Simplon [Glacier teat fi cme geen EE See L SO OC) 


Collection of Mrs. J. Montgomery Sears, Boston 


Breakfast inthe Loggia .. . 288 
Courtesy of The Smithsonian Tarte. Fr reer ils of Att 
Washington, D. C. 


x1 







ILLUSTRATIONS 


ve 


‘Lhe Master-and: His Pupils’ (i. 55% Give ee 


Courtesy of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston 


Mountain Sheepfold, Tyrol . .. . eS 
Collection of Mr. Lewis Cass Ledyard, New York 


Take\O} Hara a ar 
Courtesy of Fogg Art Mista Haran Sie 


BAK ial 
OUTLINE SKETCH OF SARGENT’S LIFE 





OUTLINE SKETCH OF 
SARGENT’S LIFE 


I 


THE SARGENT FAMILY—FLORENCE, 18 56—1874— 


PARIS, 1874—1884—SPAIN, 1880 


OHN SINGER SARGENT, the son of Doctor Fitzwilliam 

Sargent and Mary Newbold Singer Sargent, was born in 

Florence, Italy, on January 10, 1856. He was one of the 

descendants of Epes Sargent, of Gloucester, Massachu- 
setts (1690-1762), the founder of the American branch of 
this remarkable family. The two sons of Epes Sargent were 
Winthrop and Daniel; and John Singer Sargent was of the 
fourth generation from Winthrop. An amazing number of 
the Sargents have attained distinction in various walks of life, 
so much so that it may be said success is the rule rather than 
the exception with the members of this line. John Sargent’s 
father, a physician and author, of Gloucester and Boston, 
married Mary Newbold Singer of Philadelphia. She came of 
a good old Philadelphia family, and was a beautiful and ac- 
complished woman, a woman of “exceptional cultivation, not 


unskilled with her brush, an excellent musician, nervous, rest- 


3 


OUTLINE SKETCH OF SARGENT’S LIFE 


less, and satisfied only with the best.”” Doctor Sargent, at the 
time of his marriage, was surgeon in a hospital in Philadel- 
phia (1844-1854), but in the latter year he went to Italy 
with his family to live and travel, and thus it was that John 
Sargent was born at Florence in the winter of 1856. 

Those who are interested in tracing hereditary traits of char- 
acter to their sources will not fail to note that John Sargent 
inherited from his father the scientific habit of mind —the 
unbiased and painstaking search for naked truth and the will- 
ingness to accept the demonstrable facts of nature and life; 
while on the other hand he derived from his mother the strong 
artistic tastes which as time went on became the dominant 
motive in his career. Mrs. Sargent must have foreseen her 
son’s genius, for she used to take him sketching with her in 
Rome when he was still a little boy, and made a rule, which 
she rigidly enforced, that “he might begin as many sketches 
each day as he liked, but that one of them must be finished.” 

A few crude juvenile drawings by the artist have been pre- 
served. One of them, made when he was only four years of 
age, is an attempt at a portrait of his father sitting at his desk, 
writing. Another is a little outline sketch of three monkeys, 
drawn from memory after a visit to the zoo; this is said to 
have been made when he was five years old. A third drawing 
of later date represents John’s school-teacher bending over 
one of his pupils whom he is about to kiss. In a letter written 


by Doctor Sargent, he says, “John’s teacher kisses each boy 
4 


OUTLINE SKETCH OF SARGENT’S LIFE 


when he enters the school in the morning and again on leav- 
ing in the afternoon, if the boy has done well. One day John 
came home and made a sketch of such a ceremony.” This 
drawing was produced at the age of nine. There is nothing 
remarkable about it. 

Circumstances, as well as his own energy and diligence, 
favored his early dvelopment as an artist. His choice of a call- 
ing met with no opposition from his parents; on the contrary it 
was wisely approved and encouraged. He was in many ways a 
fortunate youth. He grew up amid the advantages of a refined 
home life and of daily familiarity with the artistic treasures 
of the beautiful old Italian city which was his birthplace. All 
his surroundings were interesting and congenial. He made 
copies of the old masters in the museums, and it is hardly too 
much to say that his first masters were such men as Titian, 
Tintoretto and Veronese. His education, begun in Florence, 
was continued in Rome and Nice; and for a short time he 
studied in Germany. He never went to a university. At the 
age of eighteen, in 1874, he made his entry, as a student of 
painting, to the studio of Carolus Duran in Paris. He was 
already well grounded in respect of drawing, uncommonly so 
for a youth of that age, thanks to the training he had received 
at the Academy of Fine Arts in Florence and to his own inde- 
fatigable practice in sketching from nature, begun, as we have 
seen, under the watchful eye of his mother. A friend of his 


student days described him then as a “very tall, rather silent 


5 


OUTLINE SKETCH OF SARGENT’S LIFE 


youth, who, though rather shy, could upon occasion express 
himself with astonishing decision.” 

The drawings that he was able to show to Carolus Duran on 
his arrival in Paris were of the sort that would have pleased 
John Ruskin and the Pre-Raphaelites: “there were ivy vines 
clambering over casements, with every separate tendril and 
vein shown with microscopic fidelity.” Already the boy’s 
drawings had been seen and commended by no less a man than 
Frederick Leighton, the future Lord Leighton and president 
of the Royal Academy. It is not to be supposed that these 
juvenile studies were great masterpieces; far from it; but, 
what was more to the point, they indicated that this preco- 
cious young person was a serious and industrious student who 
was already seeing things with his own eyes and was not afraid 
of work. To these fundamental merits he was in due time to 
add others, of which we shall hear. 

So young Sargent came up to the irresistible city from Italy, 
and applied for admission to the then famous atelier of 
Carolus Duran in the Boulevard Montparnasse. That brilliant 
painter looked over the contents of the young man’s portfolio 
and saw that he had much to unlearn, but he also saw “signs 
of promise far above the average”; the candidate was accepted 
as a pupil, and went to work. He was assiduous, alert, thor- 
ough; soon became one of the French master’s favorite pupils. 
“We'll show them something at the Salon yet!” said Carolus 


Duran. 


OUTLINE SKETCH OF SARGENT’S LIFE 


In the great ceiling painting in the Luxembourg Palace, on 
which Carolus Duran was engaged at the time, he introduced 
the heads of several of his favorite American students, among 
others Sargent, Carroll Beckwith, and Frank Fowler. The 
likenesses of Beckwith and Fowler, more or less idealized, are 
still there, but not so Sargent’s. It was painted out. The story 
goes that the French master especially liked to paint Sargent’s 
hands. Long after Sargent had finished studying with him, 
he used to send for him to come over and pose for hands. ‘The 
time came when Sargent could no longer respond to his beck 
and call. He, Sargent, was beginning to get work of his own 
to do which would not allow him to leave his studio at a mo- 
ment’s notice to go and pose for his domineering old master. 
One day, Carolus sent a hurry call to him, and Sargent was 
obliged to refuse the request. This was too much for Carolus. 
A few days later one of his friends who had heard of the 
episode met him and asked him, “Well, how is it with 
Sargent? Have you made up?” “Ah, no!” replied the French 
artist, “C’est fini! I have been to the Luxembourg; I went and 
I got a ladder, and I painted out his head.” 

Without doubt the choice of Carolus Duran as an instructor 
was the best that could have been made for a young student 
of Sargent’s type. According to Royal Cortissoz, Carolus 
Duran was the one painter in Paris who was best calculated to 
help him in the development of his own ideas. “Duran taught 
Sargent how to handle his brushes in a workmanlike manner, 


7 


OUTLINE SKETCH OF SARGENT’S LIFE 


how to draw and model with knowledge, and he taught him, 
above all other things, to keep his eye on the object when he 
was painting, to make sure of his facts. I say that Duran 
taught Sargent these things, but it is important to remember 
that the pupil had latent in his brain and hand all that the 
master could teach him, all, and a great deal more. It was 
natural for him to see clearly, to draw truthfully. What 
Duran did was to help him to develop and organize his gift, 
and to keep him in an atmosphere of actuality, of close sym- 
pathy with modern life.” 

In 1878, when Sargent sent his “En Route pour la Péche” 
to the Salon, he was occupying a studio at Number 73 rue 
Notre Dame des Champs; but a few years later he moved into 
a better studio at Number 41 Boulevard Berthier. Salon cata- 
logues are not noted for their accuracy in regard to foreign 
artists, and one need not be surprised to find Sargent’s birth- 
place given as England or as Philadelphia. “En Route pour 
la Péche” did not set the river on fire, but a young man’s early 
Salon pictures are always events of historical importance to 
him. It was painted at Cancale, a fishing town on the coast of 
Brittany, not far from St. Malo; was bought by Samuel 
Colman, N.A., of Newport; and has now found its way into 
the Corcoran Gallery of Art at Washington, where it is known 
as “Oyster Gatherers of Cancale.” It has been exhibited at 
the Pennsylvania Academy and at the Boston Art Museum. 


Sargent made several other sketches and studies at Cancale, 


8 


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[aysagq vt anod anoy uy | 
TIVONVO JO SYtan vost A© 








OUTLINE SKETCH OF SARGENT’S LIFE 


among them “Low Tide, Cancale,” belonging to Mr. and 
Mrs. Henry H. Sherman, and “Mussel Gatherers,” belong- 
ing to Mrs. Carroll Beckwith. 

To the year 1878 is referred an early portrait, that of Mrs. 
H. F. Hadden. She was one of the daughters of Mr. and Mrs. 
Burckhardt, Americans who were residing in Paris, and it was 
her sister whose full-length portrait made such a profound 
impression in 1881 at the Salon. Later, Sargent painted a por- 
trait of Mr. Burckhardt and a double portrait of Mrs. Burck- 
hardt and her daughter, making a total of four for the mem- 
bers of this family, who are entitled to the honor of being his 
earliest patrons and sitters. 

The portrait of Carolus Duran which followed, and which 
made its appearance in the Salon of 1879, was one of the first 
portraits exhibited publicly by Sargent. It was justly con- 
sidered a wonderful achievement for a young man of twenty- 
three. It was painted in his master’s own manner, and depicted 
a “Carolus trés joli gargon”, with little beard and nicely 
trimmed moustache, resting his elbow upon his knee in a 
nonchalant pose, with one ruffled hand hanging down with an 
elegant grace which foreshadowed so many “painters’ hands” 
to come. Already Sargent’s style was quite professional. He 
gained instantly a certain recognition. 

~The other pictures of that year were “Dans les Oliviers a 
Capri”, “Neapolitan Children Bathing”, the “Luxembourg 
Gardens at Twilight”, “In the Luxembourg Gardens”, and 


L 


OUTLINE SKETCH OF SARGENT’S LIFE 


the portrait of a chubby little French boy, Robert de Civrieux, 
with his dog. Several of these very early works are now in 
such well-known American collections as those of the Minne- 
apolis Institute of Art, the Boston Art Museum, and the John 
G. Johnson gallery at Philadelphia. 

By this time our artist had fairly got into his stride; his 
name was beginning to be known; and as each new canvas 
appeared in the Salon it became the subject of lively discussion. 
He made his first journey to Spain and Morocco in 1880, and 
it is safe to assume that his personal reactions in the Prado 
Museum at Madrid counted for something in the develop- 
ment of his style, though here again it is to be borne in mind 
that the essence of what Velasquez and Goya had to teach him 
was already in some degree present in his purpose and con- 
sciousness, so that the influence of the Spanish masters was 
rather a confirmatory force—urging him to utilize his own 
perceptions in his own way—than a revolutionary revelation. 

It is not to be supposed that a young painter of high artistic 
sensibility could stand in front of such worksas “Las Meninas”, 
“Tas Hilanderas” and “Las Lanzas” without being pro- 
foundly moved; but one may venture to think that Sargent, 
whatever were his emotions in the Madrid galleries, could 
remain standing squarely on his feet, and could without undue 
arrogance say to himself, “I also am a painter.” For, if not 
the peer of Velasquez, who is peerless, Sargent belonged to the 
same family of art from the outset, and even Velasquez might 


IO 


OUTLINE SKETCH OF SARGENT’S LIFE 


teach him no more valuable lesson than the imperative need of 
being true to himself. 

Henry James, who was the first critic to discern Sargent’s 
ability, and who wrote some exceedingly ardent panegyrics on 
his early works—finely felt and finely expressed impressions 
—fancied Sargent falling on his knees in Madrid, and, in that 
worshiping attitude, passing a considerable part of his so- 
journ in Spain. If one looks for evidence to this effect in 
Sargent’s work, it will certainly not be found in the paint- 
ings which most closely followed upon the Spanish journey 
of 1880. 

Few modern pictures equal the austerity, reserve and dignity 
of Velasquez’s style, and, although there are some Sargents 
that remind one more or less of Velasquez, there is none of 
which it can truthfully be said that it is inspired by Velasquez 
or that it is in any sense a pastiche of Velasquez. True, in the 
portrait group of the Boit children certain critics found, or 
thought they found, a strong tincture of the Velasquez style, 
but their proclamation of this analogy betrays the superfici- 
ality of their acquaintance with the Spanish master. Analyze 
the “‘Boit Children”, its method, style, touch, composition, 
color, all the elements in its making, and the more it is studied 
the more personal it seems—and the more beautiful. 

After the Spanish journey of 1880, and a visit to Venice 
the same year, came a period of prolific and joyous industry, 


a period to which belong the portraits of the Boit children, 


II 


OUTLINE SKETCH OF SARGENT’S LIFE 


the Pailleron children, the Misses Vickers, the Burckhardts, 
Madame Gautreau, Doctor Pozzi, Mrs. Dyer, Mrs. Austen, 
Mrs. Moore, Mrs. Legh, Mrs. White, and others. Several of 
these works of the eighties gave rise to spirited controversies, 
notably the Vickers group and the full-length Madame 
Gautreau, now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The 
absurdities perpetrated by pedantic critics on both sides of the 
Channel were many. Loud were the outcries of the offended 
guardians of academic orthodoxy. Tragic were the predictions 
of the doom towards which the reckless young painter was 
hurrying. All these solemn adjurations, denunciations and 
warnings seem ridiculous now in the light of Sargent’s history, 
and one is astounded by the aptitude of the critics and the 
public for finding eccentricity in work that looks so sound 
and sane to-day. 

The violent censure visited upon the “Madame Gautreau” 
in Paris appears especially hard to account for. The disturb- 
ance amounted to a veritable scandal, if we may believe some 
of the reports. There was no reason for any such agitation. 
The work was entirely serious, like all of Sargent’s work, and 
it is impossible to explain the hostility engendered by it on any 
other ground than lack of intelligence and breadth of view. 
Some writers have gone so far as to express the opinion that 
this unpleasant affair had something to do with Sargent’s de- 
termination to leave Paris and make his home in England. 


There is no real basis for this hypothesis. His departure from 


12 


OUTLINE SKETCH OF SARGENT’S LIFE 


Paris was not due to any want of recognition or patronage 
there. He was as indifferent to undue censure as he was to 
flattery; was too much absorbed in the work in hand to pay 
any attention to what was said of it either in praise or blame. 

It is on record that the portrait group of “The Misses 
Vickers” (1886) would have been refused at the Royal 
Academy had it not been for the stand made by Hubert Her- 
komer, who threatened to resign from the jury if the picture 
were not hung. It is also a matter of history which is not with- 
out its amusing side that in a plebiscite organized by the Pall 
Mall Gazette the popular vote declared by a large majority 
that ““The Misses Vickers”? was the worst picture in the 
Academy exhibition. It is obvious that in London, as in Paris, 
Sargent’s work of the eighties—that is to say much of his best 
work—was to be often misunderstood and disparaged; and 
there too, as in Paris, he went on his way unconcerned by the 
shifting winds of public opinion. We shall see that excessive 
dislike shortly gave way to equally excessive admiration and 
popularity. 

In despite of that sensitiveness which is the innate and 
indispensable possession of all true artists, there was a vein of 
stoicism in Sargent’s nature which armored him against the 
stings and arrows of bigoted criticism, and a vein of practical 
good sense which protected him from vanity and arrogance. 
This is another way of saying that he combined humility with 


self-reliance. Few artists have been so much talked about; 


EZ 


OUTLINE SKETCH OF SARGENT’S LIFE 


few have been so renowned in their own lifetime; but, as Mr. 
Isham has noted, his epigrams and his animosities were never 
exploited in the press, and the public knew of him only a few 
dates and statistics, and “‘what they could divine from his 
works.” 

What they could divine from his works! But what could 
they not divine? Read in the catalogue the published com- 
ments of the English critics for the first decade of the London 
period, and you have there a composite mental portrait of an 
impossible being, a human paradox, a monster of cynicism 
combined with a paragon of kindliness, a veritable Jekyll and 
Hyde. What makes the survey of the comments of this period 
peculiarly interesting is their incredible contradictions. The 
truth is that while the critic innocently supposes that he is 
drawing the likeness of another man, he is in reality setting 
down his own lineaments; for criticism, like art, is inevitably 
self-revelation. Thus if the critics were not able to divine 
from his works what manner of man Sargent was, they were 
simply giving the measure of their own limitations. 

It would be hard to find in the history of art criticism any- 
thing more amazing than the abundance of sheer rubbish that 
has been written and printed about Sargent. Much of it is 
intended to be complimentary. Much of it is antagonistic 
to the verge of malevolence. A great deal of it is simply 
hollow, evasive and stupid. There were still some critics in 


London in the eighties who, when they disliked a picture, felt 
14 


OUTLINE SKETCH OF SARGENT’S LIFE 


called upon to denounce the painter as a coxcomb; there were 
still some men who had the curious notion that a picture should 
be painted after a certain formula and that any departure 


from that formula was an offense to good morals. 


15 


II 


LONDON IN THE EIGHTIES—-THE TITE STREET HOUSE— 


BROADWAY——-FLADBURY——-SOME ANECDOTES 


N moving to London, in 1884, Sargent took up his 
residence at Number 31 Tite Street, Chelsea, and 
there for the greater part of each year he would 
usually have two or three sitters every day. He worked swiftly, 
but used up a good deal of time and canvas in getting his desired 
effects. With every portrait there would be several false starts 
and much rubbing out before he got fairly started, but, once 
well under way, the work would go forward with fast and 
telling assurance to its completion. When the sitter was 
allowed to rest, from time to time, the painter would go to the 
piano and seek recreation in a little music. He did not spend 
the whole day at his easel. Generally he began work at eleven 
o’clock, and he seldom worked later than four or five. In this 
relatively short time he accomplished a great deal. 
In the Tite Street studio there were the old rugs, handsome 
tapestries, and elegant furniture that are indispensable requi- 


sites of the portrait painter’s outfit; nor is the piano to be for- 


16 





A SPANISH BEGGAR GIRL 
Paul Schulze Collection, Chicago 





OUTLINE SKETCH OF SARGENT’S LIFE 


gotten. But the place was not encumbered with bric-a-brac 
and souvenirs; it was primarily a workroom. A rather pre- 
tentious Renaissance fireplace and mantelpiece in mahogany 
occupied one side of the room, with fluted pilasters, cornices, 
and lacquered carving; and there were a few choice antiques, 
such as bronzes, candelabra, vases, and furniture. Presently 
the artist found it necessary to have two studios; one was on 
the ground floor, and one upstairs, in the adjoining house 
which was purchased and added to Number 31. ““To get be- 
yond that polished and massy green door at Number 31 was 
difficult,” writes J. P. Collins. The valet, Nicola, “always had 
carte blanche for refusing him to all and sundry,” and made 
no scruple about using that authority when he liked. 

The interior, according to Mr. Collins, gave an impression 
not easy to define. “It was the house of an artist who was very 
much more. It was the house of a despot and something less. 
In the majestic values of everything, the sumptuous severity, 
the absence of any desire to appeal to any one’s taste but the 
owner’s, it stood alone. If you had been led into it blindfolded, 
and the kerchief whipped off, you might have thought you 
were in the home of a Minister of the Fine Arts, who was 
housing precious treasures he was afraid to let loose upon his 
colleagues for fear of a government shindy about the expense. 
Yet it had an element of aristocracy all its own, and might 
have been the town house of a younger scion of the tribe of 
Spencer or Grosvenor, who had quarreled with his kith and 


17 


OUTLINE SKETCH OF SARGENT’S LIFE 


kin but kept the purse within his grasp. It might have been 
the leisure resort of a great connoisseur, who chose to bring 
things here now and then to enjoy them, from a selection of 
infinite range and worth. . . .” 

Chelsea, once a suburb, now a part of London, had been the 
favorite abode of artists and literary men for a long time. 
Here Turner lived. Here were the homes of Carlyle, Whist- 
ler, Edwin A. Abbey, Henry James. Sargent soon felt more 
at home there than in any other spot, and the house at Num- 
ber 31 will always be associated in men’s minds with his most 
important activities and his greatest achievements. He had the 
affection for London that an ambitious and forceful man feels 
for the arena in which his early efforts and his final triumphs 
have been made and won. 

“He was in London, but not of it,” says Mr. Collins. “He 
never lost his love for the Italy of his birth, or the America of 
his descent and private fortune, but he found the British 
capital just the city he desired for affording him . . . the 
boon that Doctor Johnson called ‘solitude in the midst of 
crowds.’”’ Yet it must not be inferred that he was a recluse; 
he had his club, the Athenaeum; he was a member of the 
Council of the Royal Academy; he was active in the New 
English Art Club; and his list of friends, though not over- 
long, was by no means short. Near him lived his sisters. He 
was with them much of the time; one or both of them accom- 
panied him on his frequent journeys abroad. His relations 


18 


OUTLINE SKETCH OF SARGENT’S LIFE 


with his fellow artists were always exceedingly cordial. He 
had a fine esprit du corps, and loved to help and encourage 
young artists of merit. 

Many of the trivial anecdotes told of his relations with his 
sitters must be taken with a large grain of salt. There is the 
tale of the fashionable lady who was so concerned about the 
way her mouth was going to look in the picture that she sat 
from hour to hour twisting and turning her lips into all sorts 
of unnatural positions, until Sargent said, ‘Well, madam, 
perhaps we had better leave it out altogether.” Then there is 
the story about another lady who is said to have been indignant 
because Sargent declined to paint her in a gorgeous crown of 
gems; she declared that she had bought it expressly to have it 
put into her picture; whereupon the artist is said to have 
offered to make a special study of the wonderful tiara on a 
separate canvas. Of these and similar tales it is enough to say 
that in all cases where they reflect upon the courtesy of the 
painter they may be set down as apocryphal. No man could 
have been less open to the charge of neglecting the rules of 
bienséance than Sargent. 

After the toil of the London season was over, Sargent would 
go into the country for a rest. In the eighties he was accus- 
tomed to go to Broadway, in Worcestershire, to visit his friend 
Edwin A. Abbey, who was then living in that quaint and 
picturesque Old-World village, such a village as is to be found 
only in England. There the congenial society of a number of 


19 


OUTLINE SKETCH OF SARGENT’S LIFE 


American artists and literary men made the late summer and 
early autumn months delightful. Not only Abbey, but also 
Alfred Parsons and Frank Millet were residents of the place, 
and at various times Henry James, Edmund Gosse, Fred 
Barnard, George Henschel, E. H. Blashfield, Mary Ander- 
son, and others of that ilk were temporary sojourners. Sargent 
and Abbey had for several years been close friends. Abbey’s 
letters, passages from which are quoted in Mr. Lucas’ read- 
able biography, are full of the most affectionate allusions to 
“John.” In one of these missives, written in 1885, he tells 
how Sargent nearly killed himself by accident. It seems that 
during a boating trip on the Thames the two friends went in 
swimming at Pangbourne Weir; Sargent dived off the weir 
and struck a spike with his head, cutting a big gash in the top. 
It healed rapidly but was “a nasty rap.” Abbey was alarmed 
and took Sargent to Broadway to look after him, so this was 
Sargent’s introduction to that lovely retreat. 

“We have lots of music,” Abbey wrote; “Sargent plays. 
. . . Sargent and I paddled down from Oxford to Windsor. 
. . . We have music until the house won’t stand it. Sargent 
is going elaborately through Wagner’s trilogy, recitatives 
anal, dete. sn | 

The friends had long and animated “shop” talks together, 
sometimes lasting far into the night. The glimpses one obtains 
of Sargent’s personal traits as noted by Abbey are as far as pos- 
sible from corroborating the superficial observations that have 


20 


OUTLINE SKETCH OF SARGENT’S LIFE 


occasionally found their way into print concerning Sargent’s 
sphinxlike aloofness, impassibility and taciturnity. 

“‘H1e may be inaccessible at times,” testifies William M. 
Chase; “for example, he has no use for art dealers; but to 
those who know him he is a charming companion. He is a 
remarkable linguist and has traveled widely. He would have 
made a great musician had he not focussed his attention upon 
art. I have listened to him playing the piano almost by the 
hour, and giving the most beautiful improvisations—an end- 
less, bewildering flood of pure melody, flying carelessly off his 
finger tips. It is a great pity, I have thought more than once, 
that some instrument could not be devised to record such 
music for all time. Amid a coterie of congenial friends— 
artists, musicians, litterateurs, critics—he leads an almost 
ideal life.” 

As to society, he neither sought nor avoided it. He was not 
gregarious; as Chase has pointed out, most of his friends were 
artists and literary folk. His supply of small talk was limited; 
the first impression of those who met him was that he was 
reserved and reticent; but, though he seldom spoke of himself 
or his work, he was keenly interested in music, the drama, 
literature, and the work of his colleagues in painting; in the 
right sort of company he could discuss such matters in a very 
original and interesting way. His taste in reading was broad 
and scholarly; he was a widely cultivated man; and to those 
whose privilege it was to enjoy his familiar friendship the 


21 


OUTLINE SKETCH OF SARGENT’S LIFE 


genuineness and attractiveness of his character and personality 
were known. He was always most considerate and generous in 
his attitude towards the young and struggling members of his 
own profession. 

He had “the robust rectitude, modesty, industry, and power 
of sustained concentration which have been found in other 
descendants of Epes Sargent. He inherited from father and 
mother artistic tastes, and with this inheritance, by industry 
and uncommon opportunity, has made himself one of the 
world’s greatest painters. Simple in life, stern in self-judg- 
ment, always kind and indulgent in his judgment of others, 
devoted to the members of his immediate family, and a kind 
and generous friend to all struggling artists, Sargent the man, 
for the very few who really knew him, is not less remarkable 
than Sargent the artist, known and admired by the whole 
world.”’* 

That the story of his life is to be read in his work is a truism, 
applicable, no doubt, to all artists worthy of the name, but ina 
peculiarly emphatic sense true of Sargent. The tempestuous 
assiduity, tireless energy, utter absorption that he has always 
shown in his art have left scant room for any other or minor 
interests. It would be a truism also to say of such a man that 
his work is uneven. It is only your mediocre artist who is 
invariably capable of reaching the same fixed standard by the 
repeated use of the same stereotyped methods. 





1 “Epes Sargent of Gloucester and His Descendants.” 


22 


OUTLINE SKETCH OF SARGENT’S LIFE 


Sargent, as we have seen, was regarded by the English critics 
in the eighties as a young man of reprehensible audacity. This 
is not surprising when we recall the fact that these men had 
been brought up for years ona regimen of the Royal Academy 
pictures of the time. They were, not unnaturally, jarred by 
what seemed to them the startling innovations of the new- 
comer. Moreover, anything particularly brilliant in the way of 
painting looked like something foreign, French, and naughty. 
Sargent was nothing if not brilliant, ergo, Sargent must be 
tainted with the well-known immorality of the French. You 
may smile, reader, but as a matter of fact this was the under- 
lying grievance that some of the old-timers had against Sar- 
gent in the eighties. 

But while the professional critics, including some of the 
men who were targets for the ridicule of Mr. Whistler, and 
well deserved the castigation that he so enjoyed inflicting on 
them, were recalcitrant, the people were agreeably impressed, 
or, at least, that part of the British public whose tastes and 
preferences were most likely to be influential. There was a 
something not unpleasantly exotic about Sargent’s portraits, 
and his undeniable elegance of style made a strong appeal to 
the aristocratic world of London. At all events, it was at once 
evident that he could have all the work in the way of portrait 
painting that he wished. He was soon overwhelmed with com- 
missions. 


Among his English sitters in the eighties were Lady Play- 
23 


OUTLINE SKETCH OF SARGENT’S LIFE 


fair, Mrs. William Playfair, Ellen Terry, and Henry Irving; 
and of the American sitters in the same decade may be men- 
tioned Mrs. Marquand, Mrs. Boit, Mrs. Inches, Mrs. Gard- 
ner, Mrs. Kissam, and George Henschel. But the picture which 
gave rise to the most spirited discussion at this time was 
the “Carnation, Lily, Lily, Rose”, exhibited at the Royal 
Academy of 1887. It was bought for the Tate Gallery as the 
Chantrey purchase of that year. The first of Sargent’s paint- 
ings to be acquired by a public museum, it has remained a 
strong popular favorite, uniting the suffrages of all sorts and 
conditions of men. The two little girls in white who figure in 
this picture were the daughters of Fred Barnard, the illus- 
trator, and the original sketch for the painting was made at 
Broadway, in 1885. Ina letter from Abbey to Charles Parsons, 
written in September, 1885, he says: 

“Sargent has been painting a great big picture, in the gar- 
den, of Barnard’s two little girls in white, lighting Chinese 
lanterns hung about among rose trees and lilies. It is seven feet 
by five, and as the effect only lasts about twenty minutes a day 
—just after sunset—the picture does not get on very fast.” In 
another letter, dated October, 1886, Abbey states that Sargent 
has “almost finished his large picture of the children lighting 
lanterns hung among flowers”, which in fact was not exhib- 
ited at the Royal Academy until 1887. 

Whistler is credited with a puerile 77o¢ about this painting 
—he called it ‘“Darnation Silly, Silly Pose,” so it is said. It is 


24 





Copyright, The Art Institute of Chicago 


MRS. CHARLES GIFFORD DYER 





OUTLINE SKETCH OF SARGENT’S LIFE 


quite possible that he was not the author of this burlesque title. 
In 1924 I asked Sargent if he had heard of the quip, and he 
nodded, saying, “It does not sound like Whistler.” 

Among the portraits made in 1886 and 1887 were those of 
Mrs. Wilton Phipps and her grandchild, of Mrs. Harrison, 
of Mrs. and Miss Burckhardt, and of Mrs. Charles P. Curtis. 
The portrait group of Mrs. Burckhardt and her daughter 
(Salon of 1886) brought to view again the same young person 
whose full-length likeness had been first shown in the Salon 
of 1881, that is, when she was five years younger—the “Girl 
with a Rose” which so captivated Henry James. This group 
was received by the Parisian critics with marked approbation. 
The comments of Paul de Labrosse in the Revue Illustrée were 
especially significant as indicating the increasing respect with 
which the French reviewers noted the solid qualities of Sar- 
gent’s talent at this period. To say of the painter, as M. de 
Labrosse said, that the superior nature of his mind gave him 
the power of combining lightness of handling with depth of 
sentiment, was a sincere and emphatic tribute such as few of 
the writers of the time had been moved to pay. The acumen of 
the declaration was strikingly confirmed by the subsequent 
appearance of the portrait of Mrs. William Playfair and that 
of Mrs. H. G. Marquand. In both of these works it was made 
manifest that the gift of a light touch may coexist with the 
most serious sentiment. 


In the year 1888 Sargent made one of his most fruitful 


25 


OUTLINE SKETCH OF SARGENT’S LIFE 


sojourns in America, spending most of his time in Boston, 
where he had a number of portrait commissions. During his 
absence from London, Abbey made use of his studio in Tite 
Street. The Boston people who sat to Sargent included Mrs. 
Gardner, Mrs. Inches, and Mrs. Brandegee. Late in Decem- 
ber a “one-man show” of his paintings was opened in the 
gallery of the St. Botolph Club, Newbury Street, where a 
score of his works were on view for a fortnight. This was the 
first special exhibition of his pictures ever held. The collection 
contained several portraits that he had just completed in 
Boston, in Frederic P. Vinton’s studio and in Mrs. Gardner’s 
house, together with a number of those which had_ been 
painted in Paris and London—“E] Jaleo”, which had been 
purchased by the Honorable T. Jefferson Coolidge; the large 
square picture of the Boit children; the portrait of Mrs. Boit; 
and three or four of the smallish figure pieces from Italy, 
painted in 1886. 

“No American has ever displayed a collection of paintings 
in Boston having so much of the quality which is summed up 
in the word style,” wrote the critic of the Daily Advertiser; 
“nothing is commonplace; nothing is conventional. The per- 
sonal note is always felt; at first and at last it is what impresses. 
This style is generally, and in the best examples invariably, 
elegant and distinguished. One is conscious of being in good 
company.” Naturally, the large picture of the Boit children 


came in for especial admiration. 


26 


OUTLINE SKETCH OF SARGENT’S LIFE 


Over the full-length portrait of Miss Ellen Terry, which 
was painted in 1889 and exhibited at the New Gallery, the 
London public and press made a great ado. It was what the 
English people call “the picture of the year.”? Whether the 
inscrutable expression of the eyes was due to “the sudden per- 
ception of some startling vision”’, or to the effect of the foot- 
lights, there was something about it that was sure to arouse no 
end of speculation and controversy. “Opinion rages around it, 
and it enjoys the distinction of being the best-hated picture of 
the year,” said the Saturday Review. It was “full of genius”, 
and yet it was “wholly pleasing to the senses of but few.” 
According to the Athenaeum, it seemed to have been studied 
“in a theatrical spasm of rare force”; it was “painting for the 
pit!” The paradoxical author of “Letters to Living Artists” 
found the picture brutal in its vigor, daring to the verge of 
reckless charlatanism, and, at the same time, “‘a splendid vic- 
tory for the new school.” It is now in the Tate Gallery. 

Among the portraits painted in 1889 was that of George 
Henschel. Soon after it was completed, Mr. Henschel left 
England for America, and on the eve of his departure he wrote 
to thank the artist. Sargent replied as follows: 


My dear Henschel,—If I had not a sitting to-morrow 
morning from Irving, I should come and say good-bye to you 
for the pleasure of seeing you once more. I thank you for 
having written and must tell you what a great pleasure it has 
been to me that my venture of painting you has resulted in 
such a generous expression of satisfaction on your part, greater 


27 


OUTLINE SKETCH OF SARGENT’S LIFE 


than I have ever met with, and that with #zy means I have 
given you the pleasure that you always give me with yours. 
And I should be quite satisfied with my portrait if it created 
in you the sentiment of sympathy which prompted me to 
HORTA. 

The sketch portrait of Sir Henry Irving also belongs to this 
period. The London Times is our authority for the statement 
that Sir Henry so disliked the portrait that he cut it into pieces. 
At the Royal Academy banquet of 1889, Irving, who was one 
of the speakers, said: 


Some years ago, a great painter, who is still amongst you in 
all the vigor of his genius, was good enough to commit me in 
my habit as I lived to his undying canvas, and, while I gave 
him a world of trouble as a sitter—I believe that is the tech- 
nical term, though I well remember standing the whole time 
(laughter) —he had sufficient charity left to compliment 
me on the disordered remnant of my personal charms 
(laughter). 

Late in the summer of 1889, Sargent with his mother and 
his two sisters took Fladbury Rectory, near Pershore, for three 
months—a beautiful terraced house above the Avon, about 
seven miles from Broadway, on the line between Worcester 
and Oxford. In this place they entertained a number of guests, 
among them Edwin Abbey, Alfred Parsons, Paul Helleu, 
Miss Violet Paget (“Vernon Lee”), Miss Flora Priestley, and 
others. In September, we find Abbey writing from Fladbury 
Rectory: 


There are lots of girls in the drawing-room. . . . Little 


28 


OUTLINE SKETCH OF SARGENT’S LIFE 


Miss Playfair is here too, and plays the piano remarkably 
well. . . . Here, John thinks just of nothing at all else [but 
his painting |, and is always trying and trying and working at 
something. . . . He is absolutely sincere and earnest. He is 
coming to America with Alfred and me, and we must find a 
place somewhere in which to work. . . . Last night we— 
John and J—talked about what we ought to do until away on 
in the small hours—talked and talked, and I am always re- 
freshed by him. . . .” 

Of the guests who were at Fladbury that summer, M. Paul 
Helleu with his wife was sketched by Sargent while in the act 
of making a study himself on the banks of the Avon; and 
Miss Flora Priestley’s portrait was made by Sargent somewhat 
later; this latter canvas was the ‘Portrait of a Lady” shown 
at the then newly formed New English Art Club in 1896, a 
work which drew an elaborate and fervent critique from 
George Moore. An interesting passage from this review of 
Mr. Moore’s will be found in the catalogue. 

Sargent’s frequent voyages to America during the thirty- 
odd years of his London sojourn were undertaken both for 
business and pleasure. He was never idle for long, on either 
side of the ocean. The record of his vacation travels is inter- 
esting. Between 1884 and 1916 he crossed and recrossed the 
Atlantic not less than a dozen times, besides making journeys 
to Italy, France, Spain, Norway, Switzerland, Morocco, 
Egypt, Palestine, Turkey, Greece, Corfu, Austria, the Tyrol, 
Portugal, Belgium and Holland. 

1 E. V. Lucas’ biography of Edwin A. Abbey. 


29 





OUTLINE SKETCH OF SARGENT’S LIFE 


To the country of his birth he returned again and again. 
Many of his most interesting and delightful subject pictures 
were painted there, notably the Venetian scenes of 1886, and 
the incomparable diploma work of 1900, “A Venetian Inte- 
rior”, now in Burlington House. When one contemplates such 
pictures as the “Street Scene in Venice”, the “Venetian Bead 
Stringers”, the “Venetian Water Carriers”, and the “Venetian 
Glass Workers”’, some regret must be felt that so much of his 
time and energy were given to portrait painting. But, on the 
other hand, the observer who scrutinizes with care all his 
cuvre of fifty years or so will come to agree with Mr. Cor- 
tissoz’s verdict that “he has the masterful accent of the man 
born to paint portraits, born to draw from each of his sitters 
the one unforgettable and vital impression which is waiting 
for the artist.” Moreover, we cannot ignore the fact that the 
qualities of searching veracity, of intimate expression, that 
were developed through so many years of severe discipline in 
the making of portraits, are in the last analysis identical with 
the rarest excellences of his gemwre works, and give to them 


their highest and most lasting interest. 





1 Now entitled “Interior of a Palazzo in Venice.” 


30 


Ii] 


CARMENCITA—MURAL PAINTINGS ORDERED—FAIRFORD 
—EGYPT AND GREECE—BEATRICE GOELET— 
ACADEMICIAN—1 890-1897 


HE contemplated trip to America of which Abbey 

spoke in his letter took place in 1900. It was an event- 

ful journey. New York, Philadelphia and Boston 
were visited, and united in doing honor to both Sargent and 
Abbey. Sargent painted the celebrated picture of Carmencita, 
the popular Spanish dancer, which he sent to the exhibition of 
the Society of American Artists, in New York, and which was 
later bought by the French Government for the Luxembourg 
Museum. Many artists consider this work his masterpiece. 
He also made in New York his portraits of three famous 
American actors, Edwin Booth, Joseph Jefferson and 
Lawrence Barrett. 

“Carmencita was a lovely creature who had just been 
brought over from Europe, and whose dancing had set the 
town on fire in that Age of Innocence of New York,” wrote 
H. I. Brock in the New York Times. “Sargent had a studio 
for a while in Twenty-third Street. The Spanish jade was a 
very difficult subject. She would not keep still or pay atten- 


tion to her pose. Sargent used to paint his nose red to rivet her 


31 


OUTLINE SKETCH OF SARGENT’S LIFE 


childish interest upon himself, and when the red nose failed 
he would fascinate her by eating his cigar. This performance 
was the dancer’s delight. . . . There is another story about a 
grand party given at the much grander studio of William M. 
Chase, in Tenth Street, where there were Oriental hangings 
and all the artistic trappings of the period. Carmencita came to 
dance with her hair fearfully frizzled and much powder and 
paint. Sargent took a wet brush and brushed the hair as flat as 
he could get it, and then used a washrag upon the lady’s 
make-up, while Carmencita scratched at his face like a tigress. 
After the job was done, Carmencita danced, and the guests 
threw not only their flowers but even their pearls at her feet. 
She kept the pearls.” 

Sargent was a close friend of Thomas Bailey Aldrich, and 
in her memoirs of her husband Mrs. Aldrich tells how Edwin 
Booth, when his portrait was to be painted by Sargent, was 
advised by Aldrich “to buy at once a piece of sandpaper, and, 
inside locked doors, to sandpaper his soul” . . . because “all 
secret sins or thoughts would be dragged squirming to the 
light.” The portrait now hangs in the Players Club, New 
York. For it Aldrich wrote the poem which contains these 
lines: 


. . . Amaster’s hand 
Has set the master player here, 
In the fair temple that he planned 
Not for himself. To us most dear 
This image of him. . 


32 





Copyrighted, 1924, Grand Central Art Galleries, New York 


PADDY WUD EAVROSE 
[ Miss Burckhardt ] 
Collection of Mrs. Harold F. Hadden, New York 


ee 


— 7 : 7 z 
Ae PY 4 
ghia en | - 
6 a 
7 _ 4 
on 7 a“ 





OUTLINE SKETCH OF SARGENT’S LIFE 


In Boston, Sargent painted a number of portraits, among 
other things the fine full-length group entitled “Mother and 
Son”’—Mrs. Edward L. Davis and her young son Living- 
ston Davis—which he sent to the National Academy exhibi- 
tion, and which was shown later in many American cities. 
Other portraits of that year, 1890, were those of Mr. and 
Mrs. Peter C. Brooks and Miss Brooks, painted in West 
Medford; Mr. George Peabody of Salem; Mr. and Mrs. 
Benjamin Kissam; Senator Henry Cabot Lodge; Mrs. Francis 
H. Dewey; Miss Katherine Pratt; and Mrs. Augustus P. 
Loring. 

In Philadelphia, Sargent and Abbey were the lions of a 
crowded and brilliant reception at the Art Club of Phila- 
delphia; and in the spring, in New York, Abbey’s wedding oc- 
curred, at which Sargent acted as one of the ushers. ‘To crown 
all, the trustees of the Boston Public Library commissioned 
Sargent and Abbey to paint the mural decorations for two of 
the principal rooms of the great monumental library which 
had just been erected in Copley Square from the designs of 
McKim, Mead and White. 

The two friends returned to England with their minds full 
of projects for the important public commission which opened 
up to them such a grand opportunity in a new and untried but 
inviting field of art. From this time forth a large part of 
Sargent’s attention and energy were dedicated to the mural 


1 Said to have been painted in the Davis carriage house, which was used because of 
the excellent light there. 


33 


OUTLINE SKETCH OF SARGENT’S LIFE 


work that had been confided to him by the Boston people. As 
he thought out his plan, and progressively realized all its 
extraordinary possibilities, he became more and more en- 
grossed in it, and correspondingly resolute in the purpose of 
making it his »2agnum opus. With characteristic thorough- 
ness he studied the literature of his chosen theme, and per- 
ceived with ever-increasing enthusiasm how admirably it lent 
itself to mural painting. 

After his marriage Abbey moved from Broadway to a new 
home, Morgan Hall, Fairford, Gloucestershire, and there he 
proceeded to fit up a huge studio, where he and Sargent set to 
work upon their return from the United States, preparing the 
preliminary studies and cartoons for the Boston Library deco- 
rations. Sargent ran down from London several times, once 
bringing Mr. McKim, the architect, with him, and early in 
November, 1890, he came to stay, and to work daily in the 
big studio. He now becamea regular inmate of Morgan Hall, 
his custom being to go up to London only for the season, to 
paint portraits, then to make a vacation trip abroad in the late 
summer months, returning to Fairford in the autumn and 
working there until spring. This programme, with some slight 
modifications, was continued for about four years, from 1890 
to 1894. 

In 1891 he made a journey to Egypt and Greece for the 
purpose of studying the ancient pictorial and plastic concep- 


tions of the gods and goddesses of idolatry and polytheism 
34 


OUTLINE SKETCH OF SARGENT’S LIFE 


—Neith, Pharaoh, the Assyrian king, Pasht, the Sphinx, 
Thammuz, Astarte, Moloch, Isis, Osiris and Horus—that 
were to be introduced in the lunette and ceiling at the north 
end of the hall in the Boston Library. This was the first part 
of the series of mural paintings illustrating the history of the 
Jewish and Christian religions. All this old material he suc- 
ceeded in revivifying by his originality of treatment. It is 
an interesting indication of the widely various sources from 
which he drew his conceptions that he should have derived 
his ideas of Astarte’s character from Flaubert’s ‘“‘Salammbo”’, 
while he utilized as the model for the moon goddess’s personal 
appearance an archaic statue in Athens; and it is not less inter- 
esting as a sidelight upon his ways of doing things that he 
should have made the original study of Astarte in one day. 
This fine study is now in the Gardner collection at Fenway 
Court. 

But he did not confine his attention to the pagan deities 
while he was in Egypt and Greece. He made a number of 
good sketches and studies. Notable among these was the full- 
length nude study of an Egyptian girl which he sent to the 
exhibition of the New English Art Club in 1892 and which 
was subsequently shown at two world’s fairs and many other 
important exhibitions. He also made sketches of a Fellah 
woman, a Bedouin Arab, the Temple of Denderah, a group of 
Egyptian indigo dyers, and the Erechtheum, all of which 
were seen at the Copley Hall loan exhibition of 1899. 


35 


¢ 


OUTLINE SKETCH OF SARGENT’S LIFE 


The portraits of 1891 included several works of capital 
importance. Chief among these was the fascinating Beatrice 
Goelet, one of Sargent’s most charming pictures of children. 
He is universally acknowledged to be exceptionally happy in 
his paintings of little folk, and it is obvious that he brought to 
tasks of this nature much sympathy and understanding. Noth- 
ing that he has done in this particular line has greater charm 
or a more complete simplicity of spirit than the Beatrice 
Goelet. Then there were the portraits, all of them admirable, 
of Mrs. Manson, Mrs. Hemenway, Lady Hamilton, Miss 
Helen Dunham, and the unnamed “Young Girl” which ap- 
peared at the New English Art Club and excited the curiosity 
and admiration of all who saw it. “A most enchanting young 
girl,’ wrote one of the critics, “looking dreamily and unsus- 
pectingly before her out of widely opened brown eyes like 
those of a gazelle.” 

Another voyage to America was made in 1893, the year of 
the Columbian Exposition in Chicago. In the art galleries of 
the exposition Sargent was represented by nine paintings— 
the Ellen Terry as Lady Macbeth, the “Mother and Child” 
(Mrs. Davis and her son), the life study of an Egyptian girl, 
the portraits of Miss Dunham, Miss Pratt, Mrs. Inches and 
young Homer Saint-Gaudens. The last-named canvas was of 
this same year. Other portraits of 1893 were the likenesses 
of Lady Agnew, Mrs. Hammersley, Miss Chanler (Mrs. 
Chapman), and Mrs. Lewis. The portrait of Homer Saint- 

26 


OUTLINE SKETCH OF SARGENT’S LIFE 


Gaudens was given to his father, the sculptor, by Sargent, in 
exchange for the fine bas-relief portrait of Miss Violet Sargent 
(Mrs. Ormond), representing the lady at full length, in 
profile, playing the guitar. The portraits of Lady Agnew, Mrs. 
Hammersley, and Mrs. Chapman were, each of them in its 
own way, triumphs for the artist. The Lady Agnew in 
especial may be unquestionably classed among the most sym- 
pathetic portrayals of feminine character that Sargent has 
achieved. All three of these fine portraits, first seen in London 
and New York, were brought together later in the great 
Sargent loan exhibition at Boston in 1899. 

Meanwhile work on the Boston Library paintings went on 
steadily in Abbey’s big studio at Fairford. Abbey occupied 
one end of the room and Sargent the other. Sargent’s first 
section, intended for the north end of the hall, was completed 
in 1894, and was shown at that year’s Royal Academy, where 
it aroused extraordinary interest. In the following spring, 
1895, this part of the decoration was put in place in the library 
—a lunette, a frieze, and a section of the ceiling. Both Sargent 
and Abbey went to Boston to attend to the installation of their 
mural works, and they were received with all the honors that 
their modesty would allow. The Papyrus Club gave them a 
complimentary dinner at the Revere House, at which the 
writer had the privilege of sitting next to Sargent at table. 
Sargent had stipulated that he was not to be called upon to 
make any address. He was not garrulous; but we talked over 


37 


OUTLINE SKETCH OF SARGENT’S LIFE 


some books we had been reading, among the rest Pierre Loti’s 
works. He made no allusion to his own work except in answer 
to direct questions. In reply to a query as to a certain portrait, 
he dismissed it by saying, ‘‘Ah, that was not a very good one.” 
When asked why he elected to have the lighting of Sargent 
Hall so dim, he explained that he preferred it so because when 
he saw the paintings in the crude light of the Royal Academy 
galleries “the things did not look well.”? In his quiet way he 
was in all such matters as immovable as the celebrated rock in 
Sir Walter Scott’s “Lady of the Lake.”? When he saw fit to 
violate certain traditions of mural painting, he had definite 
reasons which were valid to him, and he did not argue the case. 
The innovations that he introduced were not adopted without 
due thought and premeditation, and he was always content to 
leave such things to the test of time. 

In a letter written at Biltmore, North Carolina, in 1895, 
addressed to Sylvester Baxter, who had made some inquiries 
about the Boston Public Library decorations, Sargent ex- 
plained that the three black Egyptian gods under Moloch 
were Isis, Osiris and Horus. “The middle one,” he continued, 
“is Osiris, and it is his large head-dress that makes you think 
he has three heads.” Here he made a hasty pen-and-ink 
sketch of Osiris’? head. “The Assyrian god with a vulture’s 
head,” he went on, “is simply a protecting genius, as one sees 
them in the Assyrian bas-reliefs. Don’t say much about him! 


or about the corresponding padding in the Egyptian corner. 
38 


OUTLINE SKETCH OF SARGENT’S LIFE 


Those corners had to be filled!” . . . The original of this 
letter is now in the possession of Mr. Frederic Allison Tupper. 
The gentle manner in which Sargent corrected Mr. Baxter’s 
mistake is not less noticeable than the candor with which he 
alluded to the padding in the corners. This note is interesting 
for the light it throws on certain minor problems that confront 
the mural painter, and the purely technical way in which they 
are commonly met. 

Sargent painted several portraits before returning to Lon- 
don. He went to Biltmore, North Carolina, and there painted 
the likenesses of Mr. George Vanderbilt, the owner of that 
superb estate, of Mr. Richard Morris Hunt, the architect, and 
of Mr. Frederick Law Olmsted, the landscape architect. His 
full-length portrait of Miss Ada Rehan was first exhibited in 
1895, and the same year saw the appearance of the full-length 
of W. Graham Robertson, but the most widely discussed and 
characteristic work of that year was the portrait of Coventry 
Patmore, which is now in the National Portrait Gallery, 
London. ‘The most electrifying portrait in the Academy,” 
was the declaration of one of the London critics; and Mrs. 
Meynell thought that the poet’s vitality wore an aspect too 
plainly of mere warfare. In his life of Patmore, Basil Champ- 
neys relates that when the work was finished and he went 
down to Lymington to see what the sitter called “the best 
portrait which Sargent, or probably any other painter, had 


ever painted”, it struck him as inclining toward caricature. 


So 


OUTLINE SKETCH OF SARGENT’S LIFE 


When Patmore asked him for his opinion, “I told him,” says 
Mr. Champneys, “that if the picture had been extended down- 
wards there must have appeared the handle of a whip, and 
that he would then have been fully revealed asa sort of South- 
ern planter on the point of thrashing his slaves and exclaim- 
ing ‘You damned niggers!’ Patmore was pleased. He always 
delighted in any tribute to his grasp of active life, and prided 
himself on his power of dealing blows to the adversary.” 

Few things are more significant in the record of Sargent’s 
steady advance to a position of assured ascendancy than the 
whole-hearted admiration of his professional colleagues in 
London and the falling into line of-certain of the art critics 
who had begun by throwing cold water on his work. George 
Moore, for instance, admitted that he had hesitated, but the 
picture of Miss Priestley completely won him, and his praise 
was the more impressive because of the sincerity of his tone 
and the knowledge he possessed concerning ways and means. 
Sargent had been made an associate of the Academy in 1894; 
and the year ’ninety-seven was signalized by his election as 
Royal Academician in England and as National Academician 
in America. These honors are not lightly esteemed by most 
artists, however much outsiders may pretend to despise them. 
Several important reforms in the management of the exhibi- 
tions of the Royal Academy are credited to his influence. The 
number of pictures hung was reduced, so that the walls were 
not crowded. The sculpture was installed in a much better 


40 





THE BOIT CHILDREN 


Courtesy of Museum of Fine Arts, Boston 





OUTLINE SKETCH OF SARGENT’S LIFE 


manner. A broader spirit began to prevail in respect of recog- 
nition of the newer schools. When he became a member of the 
Council, he spent much of his time at the meetings making 
sketches of the heads of his colleagues or jotting down graphic 
memories of his travels. Whether he followed the business of 
the meetings his fellow members were never quite able to 
decide. When he read his discourse on Sir Joshua Reynolds 
before the Royal Academy, he was so much affected by his 
constitutional shyness that a good many of his audience failed 
to hear a scholarly and profound critical study. 

This year of 1897 was also signalized by the appearance of 
several important portraits, among them the extremely bril- 
-liant group of Mrs. Carl Meyer and her two children. This 
canvas had all the most captivating qualities of the best ex- 
amples of his art. The other portraits of 1897 included those 
of the Honorable Laura Lister, the little five-year-old daugh- 
ter of Lord Ribblesdale; Mrs. George Swinton; Mr.and Mrs. 
Phelps-Stokes; and Henry G. Marquand, the president of the 
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. 

In respect of character-reading, the Marquand portrait, 
and that of Francis C. Penrose, which followed it only a year 
later, were conspicuously successful, the subjects being of a 
strongly accentuated type of the intellectual and cultured 
class. When confronted by the physiognomy and personality 
of an individual of this kind, Sargent’s interpretation became 


exceptionally lucid and complete; for his objective grasp of 


AI 


OUTLINE SKETCH OF SARGENT’S LIFE 


the aspect of a personage of sensibility and intelligence was 
unconsciously reinforced by a profound instinctive respect. 
This was the case not only with the Marquand and the Pen- 
rose portraits of the late nineties, but also with the Higginson 
(1903) and the Jenkinson (1915). Of the latter, Sir Claude 
Phillips wrote, ““What he especially emphasizes here is the 
man of letters, the man of lofty and leisurely thought,” and 
he believed the conception explained not only the individual 
and the moment but the type. 

Shall we say that this achievement involves insight and 
psychology, or shall we be satisfied with the simpler matter- 
of-fact theory that it is merely the result of the painter’s 
extraordinary observation of externals? The latter hypothesis 
seems prosaic, and there are those who credit Sargent with 
imagination, sympathy, passion, and all sorts of mental and 
emotional powers to divine the inner and unseen things of the 
spirit. But the more plausible and natural explanation of all 
that is most excellent in his portrait work is summed up in 
Kenyon Cox’s estimate, that Sargent, like other artists, paints 
his impression, and paints it frankly, directly, without brood- 
ing and without reservation, leaving the psychology for those 


who shall look at the picture. 


42 


IV 


THE WERTHEIMER FAMILY PORTRAITS—COPLEY HALL 


EXHIBITION—-CANARD— 1 898-1899 


R. ASHER WERTHEIMER was a wealthy and suc- 

cessful art dealer in London, whose patronymic 

and appearance sufficiently indicate his race. His 
silver wedding was to occur in the year of grace 1898, and 
he wished to celebrate the occasion by having the portraits 
of himself and his wife painted by the most distinguished 
of living painters. The portraits were painted, and made 
their appearance in the Royal Academy exhibition of 1898. 
Later these were followed by portraits of the children of 
the worthy couple—a numerous and interesting company. 
It is perhaps a question whether Mr. Wertheimer could have 
foreseen how celebrated the Wertheimer portraits were to be- 
come, but at all events he had the sagacity to realize something 
of the éclat that would be shed upon himself and his family 
by having all the members of his lively household painted by 
Sargent. Nor was he in the least daunted by the frank pre- 
sentment of his own countenance. Perhaps it would be nearer 
the mark to say that his appreciation of the intrinsic artistic 


qualities of the canvas outweighed whatever sensitiveness he 


43 


OUTLINE SKETCH OF SARGENT’S LIFE 


may have felt about the candor with which the painter had 
shown him to the world. This candor seemed to some observers 
to verge upon disdain; but we may be sure it was not intended 
so. There is a legend to the effect that Sargent once said that 
every time he painted a portrait he made a new enemy. If he 
ever said so, it must have been in jest. He was not the man to 
violate the unwritten laws of courtesy; as Mr. Cortissoz truly 
remarks, he did not betray his sitters. As human documents 
his portraits, unflattering though they are, may be relied upon 
as authentic. 

The wit of Mr. Dooley, in his pretended critique of the 
portrait of “the atrocious Higbie”, was sadly misapplied. Mr. 
Dooley, or, rather, Mr. Dooley’s creator, had been misled by 
gratuitous insinuations of a sensational press. To imagine 
Sargent as a hater of his kind and a ferocious satirist, looking 
for the marks of meanness and evil in the faces of his sitters, 
was the very height of absurdity. Yet this illusion had been 
fostered by certain critics, like Charles H. Caffin, who set 
Sargent down as wanting in sympathy, relentless, an exponent 
of the material and mundane, for the most part engrossed in 
his impression of externals." There was just enough of truth 
in these negations to mislead the hasty reader, who without 
hesitation assumes that a painter of the material must be a 
materialist, an exponent of the mundane must be a hopelessly 
worldly character, and, worst of all, that an artist engrossed 


1 “The Story of American Painting”, by Charles H. Caffin. 
44 


OUTLINE SKETCH OF SARGENT’S LIFE 


in externals must be superficial. It would be altogether too 
much to expect of the average layman that he should analyze 
the critic’s statements and thus discover that the same remarks 
might be applied to any first-rate portrait painter. 

The portrait of Asher Wertheimer “could stand beside a 
good Hals, in its vibrating energy and life’’, said the Man- 
chester Guardian. “One is very conscious here of the duel be- 
tween sitter and painter that resides somewhere in all Sargent’s 
work. The great art dealer, cigar in hand, one finger in his 
pocket, stands squarely at his ease looking at this painter with 
a sagacious eye that has appraised the masterpieces of centuries 
of artists, and seems to be appraising posterity.” Of the 
Wertheimer portraits as a whole the Morning Post said: 

“They are not . . . of satirical intent; on the contrary, 
they have the truth, the dignity, and the seriousness of all 
Sargent’s pictures, and Sargent found in these subjects a rich- 
ness of character, almost Oriental, which greatly appealed to 
his fine sense of the picturesque in portraiture.” 

‘fA series of canvases which for decorative beauty and ele- 
gance, for momentariness, for sheer vitality, it would be hard 
to match elsewhere,” wrote the late Sir Claude Phillips in 
the Daily Telegraph, 1923. “The greatest painting in the set, 
the one at the root of the whole scheme of family portraiture, 
is surely the famous portrait of the donor himself, the ‘Asher 
Wertheimer,’ which on its first appearance was the source of 
so much discussion. This picture is somewhat darkened by 


45 


OUTLINE SKETCH OF SARGENT’S LIFE 


time, and redder, too, in the flesh tones, with no appreciable 
loss, however, of expressiveness. Indeed, that element of the 
grotesque, of the caricatural, which some . . . imagined 
they detected in it, is no longer noticeable. The ‘Asher Werth- 
eimer’ confronts the beholder on equal terms, not only living, 
but thinking.” 

The portrait of the two eldest daughters of Mr. and Mrs. 
Wertheimer, Ena and Betty, appeared in the Royal Academy 
exhibition of 1901. The group of three of the younger chil- 
dren, Essie, Ruby and Ferdinand, with their pet poodles, was 
shown in the New Gallery in 1902. The portrait of Alfred 
Wertheimer was exhibited the same year at the Academy. It 
would be difficult to exaggerate the sensation caused by this 
regal series of works. Their appearance may be said to have 
marked a climax in the career of Sargent as a portraitist. 
Several other portraits, which were not exhibited at the time, 
were painted for the Wertheimers—those of Edward, Con- 
way, Alna and Hylda—while Mrs. Wertheimer’s portrait 
was painted twice, the second version being much the more 
satisfactory. 

“IT know of no other collection of ancient or modern pic- 
tures,” wrote Robert Ross, “in which you can realize every 
phase and subtlety of one artist’s titanic achievement, his 
power of delineating youth, beauty, and middle age in both 
sexes.”? “It is in their negation of all things academic that the 


famous series of the Wertheimer portraits . . . constitutes 


OUTLINE SKETCH OF SARGENT’S LIFE 


not only a monument to Sargent, but one to theart of a period,” 
declares Royal Cortissoz. 

In 1915 Mr. Wertheimer announced his intention of be- 
queathing to the British Nation his entire gallery of family 
portraits by Sargent. The bequest, however, was not to take 
effect until after the demise of Mrs. Wertheimer. Mr. Werth- 
eimer died in 1918, at Cravenhurst, Eastbourne; and, after 
the death of his wife, in 1923, the entire series of portraits 
was hung in the National Gallery. 

A drawing was published in Punch at this time, in which 
a group composed of Rembrandt, Van Dyck, Velasquez, Ho- 
garth, Reynolds, Gainsborough and Lely, on the steps of the 
National Gallery, were shown saluting Sargent as he ascended 
the stairs on his way to the portal of the Gallery. Under the 
heading of “The Young Master”, the chorus of Old Ones 
hailed the newcomer with a “Well done! You’re the first 
master to break the rule and get in here alive.” 

In the House of Commons, on March 8, 1923, Sir J. 
Butcher, member for York, interpellated the Government on 
this subject, asking whether the Trustees of the National 
Gallery were authorized to exhibit the works of a living 
artist, and whether the Wertheimer portraits were to remain 
permanently in the National Gallery. In reply, Mr. Baldwin, 
Chancellor of the Exchequer, stated that the Wertheimer 
bequest was not subject to any formal conditions, but that Mr. 


Wertheimer had expressed the wish that the paintings might 
47 


OUTLINE SKETCH OF SARGENT’S LIFE 


be placed in the National Gallery; and that, while the usual 
practice was against exhibiting works by living artists, no rule 
existed which debarred the Trustees from this course. The 
debate was continued by the member for Oxford University, 
who suggested that the Wertheimer portraits, which he char- 
acterized as “very clever but extremely repulsive”, might be 
placed in a special gallery. His remarks at this point were 
interrupted by laughter and cheers, amidst which the episode 
came to an abrupt close. 

The sequel to all this pother was the announcement that Sir 
Joseph Duveen, the senior member of a famous firm of art 
dealers, had offered to the nation as a gift a Sargent Gallery 
in which all the Sargent portraits in the possession of the 
public might be hung together, the understanding being that 
this gallery should be ina new wing of the Tate Gallery. This 
generous offer was accepted by the Government. Sir Joseph 
Duveen, in providing for this Sargent Gallery, was following 
the example set by his father, who, in 1921, donated a Foreign 
Art Gallery to the Tate Gallery, in a new wing which was 
opened in 1924. The pictures selected to be placed in the pro- 
posed Sargent Gallery include not only the Wertheimer fam- 
ily portraits, but also the full-length portrait of Lord Ribbles- 
dale and the celebrated portrait of Miss Ellen Terry as Lady 
Macbeth; and it is quite probable that other Sargents owned 
in England may be ultimately added to the collection. 

In conversation with Mr. Sargent regarding the debate in 


48 





Copyrighted, 1924, Grand Central Art Galleries, New York 


A VENETIAN INTERIOR 


Courtesy of Carnegie Institute, Pittsburgh 





OUTLINE SKETCH OF SARGENT’S LIFE 


the House of Commons, in 1923, I quoted to him the remarks 
made by the member for Oxford University and asked him 
if he did not agree with me in considering all such comments 
on the personal appearance of sitters contrary to the rules of 
courtesy. He assented emphatically. As it happens, this was 
not the first time that tactless individuals had overstepped the 
bounds that separate legitimate criticism from rude person- 
alities at the expense of sitters. For example, when the Meyer 
group was exhibited, in 1897, the writer for the Spectator 
expressed the opinion that “‘even Mr. Sargent’s skill had not 
succeeded in making attractive these over-civilized Orientals.” 
And an American writer, evidently desirous of pointing a 
moral, held up Mrs. Meyer as a sad example of the frivolous 
devotee of society who leaves her children to the care of 
menials, occasionally posing as the affectionate parent—as in 
the picture—but without convincing anybody. Another im- 
pertinent commentator would have his readers believe that 
Sargent was a prophet, speaking words of truth and warning 
when he depicted “women who are possessed of grace of 
figure and loveliness of coloring, refinement and culture, yet 
toward whom our hearts do not warm, who look out upon us 
through cold and selfish eyes”—-women, in fact, whose 
gentler and sweeter qualities of character have been “crushed 
and killed in the battle for social glory and distinction.” Tell- 
ing the unpleasant truth about these pitiable women was, if 
you please, the great painter’s chief title to distinction! Who 


49 


OUTLINE SKETCH OF SARGENT’S LIFE 


were these heartless butterflies of fashion, these cold and 
selfish climbers? Our earnest moralist named no names, leav- 
ing us to guess the identity of the wretched creatures. 

Even such a qualified critic as D. S$. MacColl was capable 
of writing, in the Saturday Review, 1898, that “‘in all the 
history of painting hostile observation has never been pushed 
so faras by Mr. Sargent.”? He went on to explain, “I do not 
mean stupid deforming spite, humorous caricature, or diabolic 
possession, the sending of a devil into a sitter: rather a cold 
accusing eye bent onthe world. . . . Mr. Sargent, ina word, 
is an artist of rare capacity, but has a temperament not com- 
monly associated with artistic power, belonging rather to the 
prosecuting lawyer or denouncing critic. Hence the mixture 
of feelings with which one regards his work, first repelled by 
its contempt, then fascinated by its life and constructive 
ability.” 

Such accusations, coming from a responsible source, call for 
serious consideration. Among the impossibilities that are asked 
of artists, few are more preposterous than that the portrait 
painter should be expected to admire, respect, like, or under- 
stand equally well all of the hundreds of sitters that come 
within his ken. Ina comprehensive view of Sargent’s portraits, 
taking in all phases of his work in this line, one may find iso- 
lated examples that appear to lend some color of plausibility to 
Mr. MacColl’s animadversions; at the same time the candid 


critic must think twice before he employs such terms as hostile 


50 


OUTLINE SKETCH OF SARGENT’S LIFE 


observation, a cold accusing eye, contempt, or the spirit of the 
prosecuting lawyer. These are not the words to be used in de- 
fining Sargent’s mental attitude towards his sitters. If in any 
of his portraits he failed to do justice to the subject, through 
lack of sympathy, let it be laid to his temperament, not to his 
intention; for no one could come into contact with him with- 
out feeling that he was a gentleman, and it would not be 
possible for a gentleman to forget that modlesse oblige. 

“Sargent is marvellously strong this year,” wrote Abbey in 
a letter to one of his friends, in 1898. “One doesn’t know 
where he will stop. There is a deeper note in some of his por- 
traits than he has heretofore touched. He is the same gener- 
ous, simple-minded fellow, with all his magnificent position.” 

The portraits of that year, besides the Mr. and Mrs. Werth- 
eimer and the F. C. Penrose, were those of Lord Watson, 
Mrs. Ralph Curtis, Sir Thomas Sutherland, Johannes Wolff, 
Mrs. Anstruther Thomson, Mrs. Ernest Franklin, and Mrs. 
Thursby. 

In 1899 came the memorable Copley Hall loan exhibition 
in Boston, the most important and comprehensive showing of 
Sargent’s works ever made. This exhibition was held under 
the auspices of the Boston Art Students’ Association, which a 
little later became the Copley Society of Boston. It contained 
fifty-three oil paintings, forty-one sketches, and sixteen draw- 
ings, a total of one hundred and ten works, and it ran for three 
weeks, from February 20 to March 13. With the single ex- 


a 


OUTLINE SKETCH OF SARGENT’S LIFE 


ception of the Whistler memorial exhibition held by the same 
society, this was the most notable one-man show ever seen in 
the United States. The occasion unquestionably served to aug- 
ment Sargent’s international renown. It was the artistic sen- 
sation of the year, and its echoes were heard afar long after 
the doors were closed. 

In London, the same season, the fine portraits of General 
Sir Ian Hamilton, Miss Octavia Hill, Mrs. Charles Hunter, 
Lady Faudel-Phillips, and Miss Jane Evans kept alive the 
interest of the public and showed that the artist’s right hand 
had not “forgot her cunning.” In the meantime Sargent was 
working hard on his Boston Public Library mural decoration 
—the second part, for the south end of the hall, the central 
feature of which was to be the sculptured high relief of The 
Crucifixion. In April, 1899, Augustus Saint-Gaudens wrote 
from Paris: 

“Sargent has been here recently, and I saw a good deal of 
him during his visit, as he came to see me about the enlarge- 
ment of his Crucifixion for the Boston Library. It is in sculp- 
ture and is to go directly opposite the Moses. He has done a 
masterpiece. He is a big fellow, and, what is, I’m inclined to 
think, a great deal more, a good fellow.” 

A day or two after the above-mentioned letter was written, 
a painful sensation was caused in America by the appearance 
in the daily newspapers of the following cablegram sent by 
the Associated Press from London: 


<2 


OUTLINE SKETCH OF SARGENT’S LIFE 


London, April 13.—John S. Sargent, the American artist, 
died here to-day after a short illness. During the past fort- 
night Mr. Sargent has been working very hard as a member 
of the hanging committee of the Royal Academy, passing 
upon pictures for the forthcoming show. Only a few days ago 
he appeared to be in good health, but complained of great 
fatigue. 

It may be fancied with what flaring headlines this false 
report was published and with what consternation it was re- 
ceived. The denial, accompanied by an explanation to the 
effect that some other artist named Sargent had passed away, 
followed hard upon the heels of the original canard, but not 
before many of the enterprising newspapers had printed long 
obituary notices. 


53 


V 


“THE THREE GRACES”—DIPLOMA WORK—A YEAR OF 
TRIUMPHS—BOSTON EXHIBITION OF 1903— 
PALESTINE — ITALY — I900—1913 


HE outstanding picture of 1900 was the portrait 

group of Lady Elcho, Mrs. Tennant and Mrs. 

Adeane, the three daughters of the Honorable Percy 
Wyndham—a group that the public insisted on calling 
“The Three Graces.” It created a veritable furore in the 
Royal Academy. A throng stood in front of this large paint- 
ing day after day during the entire continuance of the exhi- 
bition. “The world raved about it,” says Royal Cortissoz; 
the world couldn’t help itself, the thing was so brilliant, so 
captivating in its sweep and splendor. “‘A superior work of 
genius,” wrote the London correspondent of the New York 
Tribune; ‘it is a masterpiece of the art of portraiture in this 
or in any other age.” The only point open to question was the 
arrangement of the group; it was entirely unconventional, 
but, at the. same time, smacked a little of artifice even in its 
departure from precedent. Kenyon Cox, with his customary 
shrewdness, has pointed out that when Sargent was called 


upon.to invent a natural grouping of several figures, as in this 


54 


OUTLINE SKETCH OF SARGENT’S LIFE 


canvas, there was a relative inferiority to his own best, so that 
such groups, with all their brilliancy and the great beauty of 
the several parts, are not so satisfying as his single portraits or 
his pictures. 

Comparatively unremarked in that same Academy exhibi- 
tion was the smallish diploma work, “‘A Venetian Interior”, 
which now hangs in the Diploma Gallery of Burlington 
House. Herein were seen by those who had eyes to see the 
finest and most personal qualities of the painter’s art at its best. 
“It is quite astounding in its superb command of craftsman- 
ship and its acute observation of subtle gradations of tone and 
color,” said a writer in the Magazine of Art. “It is perfect in 
taste, and, despite the smallness of its scale, has breadth and 
dignity of an almost monumental kind. To find any other 
living artist who would rival or even approach it would be a 
task of considerable difficulty.” This eulogy, fervent as it 
sounds, was not at all extravagant. ‘The room here represented 
was the grand sala of the Palazzo Barbaro, and the four figures 
in it were those of the members of the Curtis family of Boston, 
friends of the artist. Into this interior with figures Sargent 
has put, with the utmost freedom and spontaneity, the accu- 
mulated knowledge of thirty years of painting and all the 
magic of his exquisite touch, that touch which in its lightness 
and rightness is his mark of unique distinction. 

The year 1900, so rich in achievement, saw also the por- 
traits of the Earl of Dalhousie, Governor-General of India; 


= 


OUTLINE SKETCH OF SARGENT’S LIFE 


of Lord Russell of Killowen, the Lord Chief Justice of Eng- 
land; of Sir David Richmond, Lord Lieutenant of Glasgow; 
of Miss M. Carey ‘Thomas, president of Bryn Mawr College; 
of the Honorable Victoria Stanley; and the second (bust- 
length) likeness of General Sir Ian Hamilton. A year of 
well-won triumphs. 

Nor was there any falling-off in 1901. The Misses Werth- 
eimer, exultant and almost aggressive in their intense vitality, 
swept the London people off their feet. “A vitality hardly 
matched since Rubens,” admitted the dour Mr. MacColl. To 
the same period belong the portraits of the Honorable Mrs. 
Charles Russell, Sir Charles Tennant, Mrs. Garrett Ander- 
son, M.D., C.S. Loch, Mrs. Cazalet and her children, Ingram 
Bywater, Sir George Sitwell with Lady Ida Sitwell and two 
children, the Duke and Duchess of Portland, etc. 

This brings us up to 1902, when the three Misses Hunter, 
the three Ladies Acheson, and the three younger children of 
Asher Wertheimer vied with each other for the favor of a 
public which by this time flocked to the Royal Academy and 
the New Gallery mainly to see what new works Sargent had 
to show. It would be difficult to say which of these three large 
groups made the most pronounced sensation in the world of 
art. The portrait of the Ladies Alexandra, Mary and Theo 
Acheson, the daughters of Lord Gosford, was an outdoor 
effect, ina garden, with the trio of pretty young ladies in white 
muslin gowns grouped around an orange tree. ‘The portrait of 


56 





Copyrighted, 1924, Grand Central Art Galleries, New York 


THE SULPHUR MATCH 
[ Cigarette ] 


Collection of Mr. Louis Curtis, Boston 





OUTLINE SKETCH OF SARGENT’S LIFE 


the Misses Hunter, owned by Mr. and Mrs. Charles Hunter, 
of Darlington, Hants, depicted the three sisters sitting on a 
cushioned circular divan, turning their backs to each other. 
The portrait of the three younger children of Mr. Werth- 
elmer, with their poodle dogs, appears to have been painted in 
the schoolroom, as a large globe is seen in the background. 
Among the other portraits of 1902 were those of Lord Rib- 
blesdale, Alfred Wertheimer, Mrs. Leopold Hirsch, Lady 
Meysey Thompson, and several of the Endicott family, the 
most interesting of these being the fine likeness of Mrs. 
William C, Endicott. 

There was also a delightful souvenir of the artist’s trip to 
Norway in 1902, in the form of a landscape with one figure, 
“On His Holidays”, showing a youth resting on the bank of 
a swift mountain stream where he has been fishing for salmon. 
Sargent’s traveling companion on this trip to Norway was the 
late James McCulloch, a Scot who, after making a fortune in 

Australia, went to London and built for himself a fine man- 
~ sion in Queen Anne’s Gate, where he formed a celebrated 
collection of modern pictures. Long after McCulloch’s death, 
his widow’s beautiful house remained the resort of a select 
group of Academicians, Sargent being among the most wel- 
come of the guests. 

It was in 1902 that Auguste Rodin, the famous French 
sculptor, visited London and made the rounds of the Royal 
Academy galleries. He halted for some time before “The 


Sz 


OUTLINE SKETCH OF SARGENT’S LIFE 


Misses Hunter.” ‘Turning to a friend who accompanied him, 
he exclaimed: “Voilale Van Dyck de Pépoque! Sargent wa 
jamais rien fait de mieux que cela, C’est un bouquet de fleurs! 
Crest une composition de maitre, sans effort. Il y en a une, 
mats on ne peut pas Sen apercevoir.” 

After the London season was over, Sargent crossed the 
Atlantic again for the purpose of installing the “Dogma of 
the Redemption”, with its high relief Crucifixion for the 
central motive of the theme, at the southern end of the hall in 
the Boston Public Library, and, incidentally, for the purpose 
of fulfilling a number of portrait commissions in Boston, New 
York and Philadelphia, where he was kept busy for several 
months. The fruits of this period of activity were rich and 
numerous. They completely filled the fifth gallery of the old 
Boston Art Museum in Copley Square in the spring of 1903. 
There were to be seen for the first time twenty portraits, in- 
cluding those of Major Henry L. Higginson, General Leon- 
ard Wood, James Whitcomb Riley, Mrs. Fiske Warren and 
her daughter, Doctor S$. Weir Mitchell, Doctor Edward 
Robinson, A. J. Cassatt, Peter A. B. Widener, Mrs. Joseph E. 
Widener, Mrs. Charles P. Curtis, Mrs. J. William White, 
Charles M. Loeffler, Mrs. Gardiner G. Hammond, Judge W. 
C. Loring, and others. 

At the Pennsylvania Academy exhibition of the same year 
several of the above-mentioned portraits of Philadelphia 
people were shown, also the portraits of William M. Chase 


58 


OUTLINE SKETCH OF SARGENT’S LIFE 


and James R. Carter; while the portraits of President Roose- 
velt, Honorable John Hay, Mrs. Joseph Chamberlain, Doctor 
J. William White, the Earl of Cromer, Lady Evelyn Caven- 
dish (now the Duchess of Devonshire), were among the other 
productions of this prodigiously prolific period. 

Returning to England, not to rest, but to paint more por- 
traits, Sargent had ready for the Academy of 1904 the Charles 
Stewart, sixth Marquess of Londonderry, K.G., carrying the 
great sword of state at the coronation of King George; the 
Duchess of Sutherland; Sir Thomas Lane Devitt; the 
Countess of Lathom, and others; while at the New Gallery 
he exhibited the Sir Henry Lucy (““Toby, M.P.”’), one of the 
editors of Punch. 

The following season his principal Academy exhibit was 
the large picture of Lady Warwick and her son, now the 
property of the Worcester Art Museum. We find him in the 
United States again in 1905. The interesting and admirably 
characterized portrait of Mr. and Mrs. John W. Field of 
Philadelphia, now in the permanent collection of the Penn- 
sylvania Academy, and the finely constructed head of General 
Charles J. Paine of Boston belong to this time. To the Royal 
Academy of 1905 he sent the picture of the Marlborough 
family, a monumental work of great size and imposing effect, 
with Blenheim Palace in the background; the portrait of 
Mrs. Robert M. Mathias (a Vele Gonfie), who was one of 
the Wertheimers; and the Lady Helen Vincent; while to the 


59 


OUTLINE SKETCH OF SARGENT’S LIFE 


New English Art Club he sent the portrait of the illustrious 
singing master, Manuel Garcia, at the ripe age of one hun- 
dred and one years, and the portrait of Sir Frank Swettenham, 
late High Commissioner of the Malay States, in white 
uniform. 

Late in 1905 Sargent departed for Palestine, intent on re- 
search connected with the Boston Public Library decorations. 
He stayed there several months during the winter of 1g05— 
1906, and while there made a considerable number of 
sketches, studies and pictures of the Holy Land, including 
the ‘Mountains of Moab’’, ““Gethsemane’’, “Syrian Goats”, 
and “Padre Sebastiano.” 

His great portrait group of the four doctors of Johns Hop- 
kins University, Baltimore, painted in London, was the clou 
of the Academy exhibition of 1906. It overshadowed his other 
contributions, which were, nevertheless, by no means negli- 
gible—the portraits of Lord Roberts in the full uniform of a 
field marshal, the Honorable Mrs. Frederick Guest, and Miss 
Maud Coats, then a young girl, now the Marchioness of 
Douro. 

“John is very strong this year,” wrote Abbey, who watched 
his friend’s progress with ever-ready sympathy, “but his 
health is a bit impaired by a month’s work on the hanging 
committee.” 

Nineteen hundred and seven is the date of the full-length 
President Eliot, painted for the Harvard Union; of the A. 


60 


OUTLINE SKETCH OF SARGENT’S LIFE 


Augustus Healey (Brooklyn Museum); of the self-portrait 
painted for the Uffizi Gallery in Florence; of the Lady Sas- 
soon; of the Reverend E. Warre, headmaster of Eton; of the 
Mrs. Harold Harmsworth; and of the Lady Essex. Sargent’s 
visit to America in 1907 was, according to my reckoning, the 
fifteenth or sixteenth in twenty consecutive years. These fre- 
quent voyages afforded him the very much needed breathing- 
spells that busy people will not take in any other way; during 
the few days of life at sea it was possible to forget for a while 
the importunate demands of portrait painting and all other 
work. 

It is common knowledge that the portrait of President Eliot 
has been very severely criticized. In the catalogue will be 
found a mordant passage from an article in the Harvard 
Graduates’ Magazine, in which the apparently inordinate 
height of the figure and the relative smallness of the head are 
among the things censured. It may be admitted frankly that 
_ the Eliot is not one of Sargent’s happiest portraits of men, yet 
there was no ground for the insinuation as to the arbitrary, not 
to say arrogant, attitude of the artist, with which the writer of 
this review brought his article to an end. As to the mzlzeu in 
which Sargent placed Eliot, that may be regarded as a mistake 
in judgment, but it was intended in good faith to give the 
work added dignity and impressiveness in consonance with 
the dignity and importance of the man and his office. On all 
accounts it is to be deplored that Sargent’s Eliot is not one of 


61 


OUTLINE SKETCH OF SARGENT’S LIFE 


his master works. The men may without doubt be called two 
of the greatest Americans of their time. By some fatal mis- 
chance, the true causes of which we shall probably never 
know, they failed to get en rapport with each other. 

Sargent’s self-portrait, painted for the Uffizi Gallery, is a 
half-length, and as it represents his appearance at the age of 
fifty-one, it shows him at the full maturity of his powers, with 
the physiognomy and bearing of a man of solid character, 
intelligence and ability. During his visits to Italy in 1907 
and 1908 he painted several interesting studies and pictures, 
which were shown at the New English Art Club. The most 
noteworthy souvenir of his Italian journeys was ““The Foun- 
tain’’, a scene in the park of the Villa Torlonia at Frascati, 
now in the Art Institute of Chicago. Two other canvases, 
which have found their way into public collections, are ““The 
Solitary” (or “The Hermit”), painted in the Val d’ Aosta, 
which is owned by the Metropolitan Museum, New York, 
and ‘The Church of Santa Maria della Salute”, which is in 
the Johannesburg Gallery. 

Among the portraits of 1909 and 1910 were those of Mr. 
Balfour, the Duke and Duchess of Connaught, Mr. and Mrs. 
Pulitzer, Miss Mathilde Townsend, Miss Helen Brice, and 
the Earl of Wemyss. The last-mentioned work made a sensa- 
tion, but his lordship did not like it at all, and was not in the 
least disposed to conceal his feelings in the matter. “One of 
the best things I ever did,” Sargent said to Mr. Collins. The 

62 


OUTLINE SKETCH OF SARGENT’S LIFE 


reproductions make it look sketchy, but it is a vigorous, pic- 
turesque head, much in the style of the Coventry Patmore 
and Joseph Jefferson portraits, that is to say, slight, but living. 

In 1909 Sargent made a trip to the Island of Corfu, where 
he painted several more of the striking impromptu studies 
which he habitually brought home from his foreign travels. 
In 1910 and 1911 he revisited Switzerland, where he made 
many of the exquisite water colors now in the Boston Art 
Museum. This group of landscapes with figures in which the 
doings of the two or three ladies who were his traveling com- 
panions among the Alps are recorded in that wonderful sten- 
ographic style of his, leaves little to be desired in the way of 
breadth, suggestiveness, or the expression of life, light and 
color. The lightness and certainty of his touch and the de- 
lightful playfulness of his mood in these spontaneous works 
are unique. More studied and ponderous pictures of the Swiss 
scene are the oil paintings, “Glacier Streams” (or “The 
-Simplon”), in Mrs. J. M. Sears’ collection, and ‘‘Recon- 
noitering”, both of which give testimony to the painter’s 
strong feeling for the grandeur of the mountains. “The 
Waterfall”, exhibited at the Royal Academy of 1911, also 
painted in the Alps, revealed him, in the words of a writer for 
the Studio, as a landscape artist of the first rank. 

In 1913 he revisited Spain, and among the subjects he 
found there was the “Hospital at Granada” (Royal Academy, 
1913), which was bought at Christie’s in 1924 for the Vic- 

63 


OUTLINE SKETCH OF SARGENT’S LIFE 


toria National Gallery, Melbourne. Other Spanish motives 
were “Spanish Gypsies”, “Spanish Stable”, “Moorish Court- 
yard”, and “Weavers.”” The last-named canvas was acquired 
by the Freer Gallery, Washington. It represents several fig- 
ures at work in a shadowed room, with a glimpse of a lighted 


courtyard beyond. 





ws 





VENISE PAR TEMPS GRIS 
Collection of Sir Philip Sassoon, London 





VI 


SOMEWHERE IN AUSTRIA—BOSTON LIBRARY MURAL WORK 
—ANOTHER ONE-MAN SHOW—THE CANADIAN 
ROCKIES—LAKE 0? HARA—I914—1916 


ENRY JAMES was an old and tried friend of the 
artist, and, it may be remembered, the famous 
novelist had been one of the earliest critics to ap- 
preciate Sargent’s talents in the eighties. Only a short time 
before James’ death in 1914 Sargent painted his likeness for 
the National Portrait Gallery, London. The painting was 
mutilated by a militant suffragette soon after it was placed on 
exhibition, but fortunately the damage was of a nature that 
permitted the canvas to be successfully repaired. The picture 
_ when subsequently exhibited at the Panama-Pacific Exposi- 
tion of 1915 at San Francisco and at the Boston Art Museum 
in 1916 showed no signs of the slashing it had received. 
After the London season, towards the end of July, Sargent, 
with two or three friends, went to the Austrian Tyrol for a 
vacation, intending to do some sketching. ‘The war broke out 
on August 1. None of the party had a passport; none was able 
to draw any cash from the banks; and in consequence they 
were all obliged to remain where they were for some time. In 


05 


OUTLINE SKETCH OF SARGENT’S LIFE 


the obscure village among the Dolomites where they chanced 
to be staying, they were known, and one of the worthy Tyrol- 
ians hospitably took them in and cared for them during the 
long weeks of their enforced detention. At last the passports 
and money for which they had sent and for which they had 
impatiently waited so long arrived from home, and they 
were free to take their departure. As may be supposed, Sar- 
gent did not pass the time in idleness. Wherever he happened 
to be, he had his painting kit with him, and he could always 
find subjects to sketch that remain as pictorial records of his 
wanderings. 

A cablegram to the American newspaper press, dated 
London, August 21, 1914, ran as follows: 

John S. Sargent, the painter, is somewhere in Austria. His 
friends are greatly worried as to his safety. He was last heard 
from on August 4. Mr. Sargent had been painting in The 
Tyrol. He was accompanied by Major Armstrong, an Eng- 
lishman. It is believed probable that he has been detained by 
the Austrian military authorities and not permitted to return 
to England. 

When the exile returned in due time to London, he brought 
with him some of the strangest looking pictures he had ever 
painted. Strangest of all were the ‘“T'yrolese Crucifix” and the 
“Tyrolese Graveyard.” Less odd was the “Tyrolese Interior”, 
now in the Metropolitan Museum, New York. By far the 
most pleasing to look upon was “‘Master and Pupils”, now 
owned by the Boston Art Museum, which is conceived in an 


66 


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entirely different mood and carried to an unusual degree of 
finish. 

At the Panama-Pacific International Exposition of 1915 
Sargent exhibited thirteen paintings. These included the early 
portrait of Madame Gautreau, the “Spanish Stable”, the full- 
length nude study of an Egyptian girl, “Syrian Goats”’, the 
portrait of Henry James, the sketch of Joseph Jefferson, 
“Rose Marie’’, ““The Sketchers”’, and “‘Reconnoitering.”” At 
the Royal Academy exhibition of the same year he exhibited 
the portraits of Earl Curzon of Kedleston and F. J. H. Jen- 
kinson, the one a famous statesman, traveler, author, and 
administrator, former Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, 
Viceroy and Governor-General of India; the other the libra- 
rian to the University of Cambridge, “the man of letters and 
the man of lofty thought.” 

In the spring of 1916, Sargent, having virtually completed 
the Boston Public Library decorations, begun nearly thirty 
_ years before, set sail for Boston, bringing with him the series 
of Madonna episodes for the walls and ceiling adjoining the 
sculptured Dogma of the Redemption, at the southern end of 
the hall; also the series of six lunettes illustrative of Judg- 
ment, Heaven, Hell, Law, Gog and Magog, and the Messi- 
anic Era. For some seven months after his arrival in Boston, 
in May (with the exception of a midsummer vacation which 
he spent in a trip to the Canadian Rocky Mountains and the 
Glacier National Park in Montana), he worked daily on the 


67 


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scaffolding in the library, modeling and gilding every least 
bit of ornament, repainting whole passages of his panels, at- 
taching to them many yards of ribbed corduroy, so applied as 
to make the diffusion of light more interesting than from flat 
surfaces. It is no secret that he was reluctant to let the public 
see the work at Christmas time; he would gladly have spent 
another year over the installation. 

With the unveiling, at the Christmas holidays, of the series 
of Madonna episodes and the six lunettes, the great artistic 
undertaking, so long in hand, truly a prodigious sustained 
effort, was all but completed. There remained to be filled only 
the three large panels on the east wall over the stairs. The 
achievement was received with well-nigh universal acclaim. 
The work, said Mr. Frederick W. Coburn, “‘is of our time and 
of all times.”” The artist had adduced “all the forces of a rich 
and powerful personality” toward the completion of his task. 
His vigorous mentality, complex and cogent, had with its 
strands “large wefts of imagination, fancy, sympathy, pas- 
sion.” He experienced the emotive urgencies which have 
marked the workmanship of the great artists of various eras. 
Mr. Ernest F. Fenollosa spoke of the decoration as “the un- 
heralded leap of genius out of the dark.” The idea was new, 
organic in its own right, winning its way with all parties in the 
teeth of theories, amid the wreck of traditions. ““One marvels 
at the grasp of a mind which can grapple at once with two 
independent hosts of difficulties, think of such myriad rela- 


68 


OUTLINE SKETCH OF SARGENT’S LIFE 


tions in all their mutualities.” Here, declared Mr. Fenollosa, 
imagination was demonstrated to be, not the antithesis of 
intellect, but its highest potency. 

The pronounced originality of the decoration was recog- 
nized by all observers. In no respect was it more remarkable 
than in the fertility of invention. Old ideas were invested 
with new forms. They were composed, related, and combined 
in a thrilling ensemble. The final impression was of a work 
of prodigious ability and scholarship. The ancient traditions 
and doctrines were presented with a new note of eloquence, 
an accent preéminently personal and modern, but with more 
scientific and literary elegance and philosophic assent than 
naiveté. Wrought with all the resources of a great and shin- 
ing talent, the tremendous scheme was carried out with an 
intellectual and aesthetic grasp of the highest order, with 
richness and splendor and unity. If it lacked the impassioned 
conviction and the ingenuous simplicity of the age of faith 
which gave birth to the mural paintings of the Renaissance, 
_ this was not to be imputed to the painter as a fault; he was, 
as always, himself, utterly sincere, unassuming, genuine; and 
all one could do was to accept gratefully what he had to give. 
“The aesthetic world is limited in its scope,” says George 
Santayana; “it must submit to the control of the organizing 
reason, and not trespass upon more useful and holy ground.” 

For nearly six months, from May 10 to November 1, 1916, 


a special exhibition of Sargent’s paintings was held in Gallery 


69 


OUTLINE SKETCH OF SARGENT’S LIFE 


IX of the Boston Art Museum, this being the fourth exhibi- 
tion of his works to be held in Boston. The collection con- 
tained some relatively unfamiliar portraits and landscapes 
which had been shown at the San Francisco exposition in 191 5, 
and of these seven were lent by the painter himself. The 
“Street Scene in Venice” was lent by Mr. Louis Curtis; the 
singular “Graveyard in the Tyrol” was lent by Mr. Robert 
Treat Paine, Second; “Glacier Streams” (or “The Simplon” ) 
was lent by Mrs. J. Montgomery Sears; ‘‘Low Tide, Cancale”, 
was lent by Mr. and Mrs. Henry H. Sherman; and there were 
about a score of portraits, mostly of Boston people, making a 
total of thirty-two works. 

A wholesome and fruitful interval in the toilsome year 1916 
was the summer vacation trip to the Canadian Rocky Moun- 
tain region. Avoiding the moving army of tourists at Banff 
and Lake Louise, Sargent found his way to a retired camp on 
the banks of Lake O’Hara, far from the madding crowd, and 
there it was that he painted his gloriously beautiful landscape, 
“Lake O’ Hara”, which became the property of the Fogg Art 
Museum of Harvard University. He began to paint this pic- 
ture on a gray day, when the scene was very impressive, but 
before he had got very far with it there was a change in the 
weather and the clouds rolled away. Came two or three bril- 
liantly clear, sunshiny days. He changed his mind and made 
it an effect of sunshine. Then a spell of bad weather super- 


vened, interrupting the work; but when the sun finally made 


70 


OUTLINE SKETCH OF SARGENT’S LIFE 


its reappearance he was enabled to finish the picture. During 
the stormy weather he made a water-color sketch of the 
subject as he had originally planned it, a gray-day effect. This 
belongs to Mr. Edward W. Forbes. 

The sojourn at the Lake O’Hara camp is further com- 
memorated in several other excellent pictures, including the 
“Rocky Mountain Group”, owned by Mr. Thomas A. Fox, 
and the “Interior of Tent”, owned by Mrs. John W. Elliot of 
Newport, both of which give an interesting idea of the kind 
of place the camp was and the gusto with which the painter 
responded to the call of the wilderness. ““T'wo Girls Fish- 
ing”, in the Cincinnati Art Museum collection, is another 
interesting souvenir of the same trip. Still another is the im- 
portant landscape in Fenway Court, Boston, representing a 
beautiful waterfall in the Yoho Valley. 

Water colors made at Lake O’Hara belong respectively to 
the Fogg Art Museum, Mrs. Brandegee of Brookline, and the 
Gardner Museum. Two of these depict the camp fire. In the 
Canadian Pacific series of aquarelles the justice of the obser- 
vation, the swift and confident character of the handling, and 
the completeness and finality of the impression due to the 
rightness of relations between the parts, go very far to place 
these studies in the topmost rank. 

The Rocky Mountain pictures were first shown at a special 
loan exhibition held in the Copley Gallery, Newbury Street, 


Boston, in aid of the American Ambulance Hospital in Paris, 


FA 


OUTLINE SKETCH OF SARGENT’S LIFE 


in1917. This was the fifth Sargent exhibition in Boston. The 
collection was composed of about a dozen oil paintings, half 
a dozen water colors, and thirty drawings. The private view 
was crowded, and in the midst of it, Sargent, who had prob- 
ably been persuaded to be present rather against his inclina- 
tion, beat a hasty retreat. A handsome sum was realized for 
the above-mentioned object. 


72 





MADAME xX 


[ Madame Gautreau | 
Courtesy of Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York 


and William Heinemann, Ltd., London 


Pe 
- 575 
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=. = 
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in ay 
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. 





2 ra 
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Vil 


PRESIDENT WILSON—GASSED—ROCKEFELLER—CATHEDRAL 
OF ARRAS—THE ROAD—BRITISH GENERALS— 
MORE MURAL PAINTINGS—19Q 1 8—1922 


T will be remembered that Sir Hugh Lane had offered 
ten thousand pounds for a portrait to be painted by Sar- 
gent in aid of the British Red Cross. The offer was made 

in 1915, only a short time before Sir Hugh lost his life in the 
Lusitama disaster. No directions had been left as to what 
personage should be the sitter. Under these puzzling circum- 
stances the decision was referred to the Court of Chancery, 
which, after deliberation, finally determined that the trustees 
of the National Gallery of Ireland were entitled, as residuary 
legatees under the will of the deceased, to nominate a sitter 
and. to possess the portrait when finished. Acting under these 
instructions, the trustees then asked President Wilson to sit to 
Sargent. 

The portrait, finished in 1918, was exhibited at the Metro- 
politan Museum, New York, and at the Royal Academy in 
1919. It was generally considered one of the least admirable 
of Sargent’s works, although it must be said that this opinion 


does not appear to have been unanimous. Sir Claude Phillips, 


73 


OUTLINE SKETCH OF SARGENT’S LIFE 


for example, called it a well arranged and satisfactory like- 
ness; and a writer for the Stwdzo considered it one of the best 
things that Sargent had done. It is now in its permanent home 
in the National Gallery of Ireland. 

The two portraits of John D. Rockefeller which were 
painted at about the same time, and which were exhibited in 
New York, Philadelphia, Boston, Chicago, Detroit and Buf- 
falo, in 1918, were also very severely criticized, some of the 
reviews going to great lengths in disparagement. On the other 
hand, there were those who found the two canvases full of 
interest as studies of character. The Boston Transcript went 
so far as to place them among the great portraits of modern 
times. 

In the Corcoran Gallery at Washington there is a sketch 
portrait of Daniel J. Nolan, painted in 1917, and the history 
of the making of this head, as related by Mr. Coburn, is not 
without interest as revealing certain genial characteristics of 
the two men, the artist as well as the sitter. It appears that 
Dan Nolan, who was an expert restorer of pictures, received 
one day from Sargent the latter’s early portrait of Frederic P. 
Vinton. ‘The picture, made in the early eighties, had cracked 
badly, and Sargent wished to have it properly restored. ‘This 
Dan Nolan did, making a good job of it. When he delivered it 
at Sargent’s studio, he refused to take payment for his work, 
saying, “It’s a tribute from one great artist to another!” This 


gesture rather pleased Sargent. At dinner with friends a few 


74 


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days later he told about the incident, and remarked that since 
Dan refused to be paid in hard cash he must think of some way 
of rewarding him for his services. “Why don’t you do Dan’s 
portrait?” suggested one of the artists present. “There is 
nothing in the world he would treasure so much as that.”? “Do 
you really think he would care for it?” asked Sargent. 

When the great painter proposed to Dan to make a charcoal 
head of him, Dan had the hardihood to offer an amendment, 
hinting broadly that he would prefer a sketch in oils. “Don’t 
you like my drawings!” asked Sargent. “You know I love 
them, Mr. Sargent,” was the reply; “but I am thinking of my 
descendants, and how your picture would be better kept for 
them. You see, my wife and J are both Irish, and in our house- 
hold we sometimes have family discussions. Now, if she 
should throw her shoe at me, and it happened to go through 
your charcoal drawing, it would be spoiled forever, but if it 
just dented an oil painting, I could always fix that up as well 
as I did the Vinton.” Sargent, who was not without a sense of 
humor, was amused, saw the point, and readily agreed to make 
the desired oil sketch. Across the top of the canvas is the 
inscription: ““T’o my friend Daniel J. Nolan.” 

In 1918 Sargent received an invitation from the British 
Government to go to the British Front in Northern France 
and make some pictures to be added to the collection which 
was already in process of being formed for the Imperial War 


Museum in London. He proceeded at once to the seat of war, 


7) 


OUTLINE SKETCH OF SARGENT’S LIFE 


where he passed a portion of the summer, moving from place 
to place in the quest for subjects. He made many studies and 
sketches, but few finished pictures. Among the localities 
visited in the course of his wanderings were Ypres, Arras 
and Poperinghe. The most important picture painted was 
““Gassed”’, which was exhibited at the Royal Academy of 
1919,a work of monumental dignity and indescribable pathos, 
which Sir Claude Phillips called a very noble work, the great- 
est, on the whole, that Sargent had ever shown in England 

“Of singular beauty and singular impressiveness is this 
halting, broken rhythm marked in the timid advance of the 
shattered band which but an hour before marched out in all 
the elastic gayety of youth and self-confidence. .. . Reticent 
as the artist has been in the expression of supreme tragedy— 
perhaps, indeed, on account of this very reticence—he attains 
toa height of pathos such as has not been reached as yet in any 
war picture,” wrote Sir Claude in the Daly Telegraph. 

The other English critics were equally warm in their praise. 
The reserve and restraint of the work, its impersonality, and 
total avoidance of the sentimentality that nine out of every 
ten painters would have been irresistibly impelled to lend to 
such a subject, were among the rare excellences pointed out by 
the reviewers. Tardily these men recognized the artistic virtue 
of temperance, the value of understatement. “It is thus that 
Piero della Francesca treated battles,” quoth one of the scribes. 


As Sargent had not impaired the nobility of the human 
76 


OUTLINE SKETCH OF SARGENT’S LIFE 


tragedy in “‘Gassed”’ by overemphasis, so in his “Cathedral of 
Arras” he instinctively avoided sentimentalizing the tragedy 
of ruins. It was left to the observer to supply whatever com- 
ments the shattered monument seemed to demand. As usual, 
the critics touched two extremes, on the one hand finding in 
this canvas much of that “grandeur of departed glory which 
clings about the relics of ancient Greece”, on the other com- 
plaining of the coldness and objectivity of the conception. 

A singularly uncompromising sketch called ““The Road”, 
which was acquired by the Boston Art Museum, had the most 
novel and unconventional veracity and the peculiarly Sar- 
gentesque earmarks that differentiate his work from that of 
other painters. ‘This sketch was almost in monochrome, and, 
as the Bulletin of the Museum remarked, the hue of the earth 
seemed to have absorbed every fragment of other color. Asa 
first-hand historical document relating to the war this peculiar 
dust-colored impromptu note must have a value and impor- 
tance quite out of proportion to its modest dimensions and 
_ casual aspect. 

Another painting of this period was entitled “Shoeing Cav- 
alry Horses at the Front”, dated 1918. This work was sent to 
the Grand Central Art Galleries, New York, by the artist, 
early in April, 1925, only a few days before his death, as his 
third contribution to the galleries, and was exhibited at the 
third annual founders’ exhibition, in June, 1925. A brief 


letter from Sargent, notifying the manager of the galleries 


Tay 


OUTLINE SKETCH OF SARGENT’S LIFE 


of the shipment of the picture, was postmarked “Chelsea, 
11 P.M., April 14”, so that it is quite probable this was the 
last letter written by him. It was characteristically terse, and 
the closing paragraph announced that he was sailing for 
Boston on the eighteenth per steamship Baléic. 

There are many stories of the calmness and unconcern of 
the artist in the war zone. One describes him as wheeling a 
barrow of canvases through the ruins of Ypres, and subse- 
quently sitting down under an archway of one of the wrecked 
public buildings to make a sketch. Another glimpse shows him 
sitting under an umbrella and making ready to paint a portrait 
of General O’Ryan, of New York, amidst all the confusion 
and turmoil of military operations. 

In 1919, the Royal Academy chose as its president Sir 
Aston Webb, the architect. There had been some talk of 
Sargent as a possibility for the office, and, naturally, some 
debate as to his eligibility, for he was not a British subject. 
It is safe to say that Sargent did not desire the honor and would 
have declined it had it been offered to him. Because his col- 
leagues were aware of his feeling in the matter, the actual 
proffer was not made. 

Shortly after the close of the War he was commissioned to 
paint for the National Portrait Gallery, London, a very large 
portrait group of twenty-two members of the British General 
Staff. The work was undertaken on a commission from Sir 
Abe Bailey, Bart., for presentation to the nation. It was the 


78 


OUTLINE SKETCH OF SARGENT’S LIFE 


sort of undertaking that a man could hardly refuse to make, 
yet which in the nature of things could not possibly be an 
unqualified artistic success. According to a writer for the 
London Tzmes, it showed in its very restraint a much deeper 
understanding of the problems of wall decoration than ap- 
peared on the surface. This was followed in 1923-1924 by 
the three-quarters length portrait of President Lowell, for 
Harvard University, to which it was presented by members 
of the Board of Overseers. 

Boston and Cambridge continued to keep the painter busy 
on mural work. He had not completed the Public Library 
decorations before the commission for the decoration of the 
rotunda of the Museum of Fine Arts came to him in 1916, 
and this last-named undertaking was not finished until 1921. 
Four large oval panels, four smaller panels to fill circular 
spaces, four bas-reliefs, and four unframed bas-reliefs made 
up the sum total of this scheme of decoration. The entire 
series was in a much lighter vein than the Boston Public 
_ Library work, and gave an impression of gayety and ease, yet 
for the better part of five years the painter toiled with unre- 
mitting industry over this commission. He would often be at 
work by eight o’clock in the morning, from which hour until 
nightfall he was never idle. His attention to every minutest 
detail of the work was indefatigable. He spent many days in 
constructing a complete model of the rotunda; he made small- 


scale studies of every panel and innumerable drawings from 


fe) 


OUTLINE SKETCH OF SARGENT’S LIFE 


life. In all ways he showed a characteristically tireless deter- 
mination to perfect his work by endless study, experimenta- 
tion and revision, with a view to bringing all its parts into 
harmony and unity. 

When the Boston art critics were invited to a press view of 
the mural paintings in the Museum, in 1921, the assistant 
director handed to each writer present a succinct typewritten 
description of the panels with a semiofficial explanation of the 
symbolism. It chanced that one of the minor panels, depicting 
three graceful female figures in dancing postures, was without 
a title. Some one asked who these personages were supposed 
to be. “Ah, that I cannot tell you,” said the assistant director; 
“IT asked the artist that same question myself, the other day, 
and he answered, ‘Oh, they’re three blokes dancing!?” So 
long as the group fulfilled its decorative purpose, the identity 
of the three blokes was of no moment to him. This was an 
interesting sidelight on the spirit in which he had conceived 
the Museum decorations, which were so much less compli- 
cated in their symbolism than the Library paintings. 

“Heroic, yet magnificently simple in design and execution,” 
wrote Jean N. Oliver, “the purity and nobility of the classic 
is combined with that modern and highly original style, in 
both pattern and color, which has always distinguished this 
great master. In the present case it seems as if he had never 
felt the fatigue of the effort; the figures appear to have 


evolved themselves in their proper places; yet when one con- 


8o 





CAKNALION Weibel yer ROSE 
Courtesy of the Tate Gallery, London, and William Heinemann, Lid., London 





OUTLINE SKETCH OF SARGENT’S LIFE 


siders the five years spent by Mr. Sargent in planning and 
perfecting this stupendous work, the magnitude of the under- 
taking can be somewhat understood.” 

The Museum rotunda work was followed in 1922 by mural 
paintings in the Widener Memorial Library, Cambridge, 
commemorating Harvard University’s participation in the 
World War. Two tall panels set in the round-arched spaces 
at either side of the doorway that opens into the library’s 
memorial room depict respectively the young soldiers of the 
nation marching to the relief of the Allies and the conflict 
between Victory and Death. In the first-named panel, the 
symbolism is carried out with the aid of some first-rate real- 
ism. The American infantry marches to the Front, a serried 
mass of gallant, boyish figures, in the sober-hued olive-drab 
uniforms and soft hats, extending, as they pass, the hand of 
help to the symbolic figures of France, Belgium and Britain, 
while overhead waves a big American flag and soars the bel- 
ligerent American eagle, looking uncommonly ferocious and 
formidable. There is something stirring in this half-allegor- 
ical and half-naturalistic work, with the manly youthful types 
of American soldiers, painted from life, for the most part por- 
traits, with the national traits of eager, fearless hardihood, 
confidence, patriotism, ardor. Their coming, tardy but not 
too tardy, to the aid of the tired and hard-pressed Allies, is 
admirably true to the historic fact and the spirit of the his- 
toric moment. Sargent had never done anything of this sort 


81 


OUTLINE SKETCH OF SARGENT’S LIFE 


before. The memories of 1917-1918 which are so close to 
the American heart are revivified by sight of this brave pic- 
ture; surely none can look upon it unmoved. 

The other panel is purely symbolic, and depicts the conflict 
between Victory and Death, struggling for ascendency in a 
hand-to-hand contest, the issue of which cannot be doubted. 
The young hero in the very hour of glorious triumph is 
grasped by the iron hand of Death, from which there is no 
possible escape. ‘In subject, in treatment, these are perhaps 


the most emotive works Mr. Sargent has made,” 


says Mr. 
Coburn. “Few of us fail to react spiritually in their presence. 
A slight understatement of the dramatic possibilities, a muting 
of the color passages, eliminates any sense of the vulgar and 
the commonplace.” 

Twenty-one charcoal drawings, studies for these mural 
paintings, were given to the Fogg Art Museum by the artist. 
The drawings include sketches of marching men, prostrate 
soldiers, studies of heads and hands, and the like. Many of 
these first-hand life studies have been utilized with very little 


modification in the finished paintings in the library panels. 


82 


VItl 


GENEROSITY—-ACUMEN——_NEW YORK SARGENT SHOW—— 
COM PARISONS—THE PAINTER’S JOB—AN ESTIMATE 


ARGENT’S generous interest in the work of his fellow 

artists has been mentioned. It was often manifested 

both in England and America, but his friendly aid 
and encouragement were sedulously kept from the public 
view. Frank Tompkins was one of the painters occupying 
studios in the Columbus Avenue building where Sargent had 
his workrooms for eight or ten years in Boston; and once in a 
while, when Tompkins’ door stood open or partly open, Sar- 
gent would drop in for a few minutes to look over his neigh- 
bor’s work and (if requested to do so) to criticize it. Shortly 
after one of these friendly calls, Tompkins was surprised by 
an unexpected visit from a representative of the Boston Art 
Museum, who asked to be shown a certain painting of a 
“Mother and Child.” A few days later the picture was bought 
by the Museum. Here was a case where the busy, preoccupied 
Sargent had gone out of his way to persuade the officers of the 
Museum to purchase a picture by a relatively obscure man; 
for unquestionably it was his advice that had led to their 


action. But never a word did Sargent say to Tompkins or to 


83 


OUTLINE SKETCH OF SARGENT’S LIFE 


any one else about his part in the transaction; and it was only 
by accident, some time afterwards, that Tompkins learned 
how it all came about. 

The catholicity of Sargent’s taste in respect of pictures is to 
be remarked. His admiration of Antonio Mancini’s work, and 
the use of his influence in extending the Italian painter’s vogue 
in England, have been spoken of. He was deeply impressed 
also by the genius of Ignacio Zuloaga, the Spanish painter, 
and, when the latter was about to send a collection of his pic- 
tures to America for exhibition, he, Zuloaga, confided to Sar- 
gent the honor of announcing him to the American public. 
Sargent wrote a few lines as a foreword to the Zuloaga cata- 
logue, in which he said: 


The strangeness and power of Sefior Zuloaga’s evocations 
might lead one to consider him as a personality quite unique 
and unrelated to any past tradition; as a creator of types and 
of asetting for them charged with an intensity of life strained 
to a pitch not reached before. But it is in this very excess of 
romanticism that his link with one of the two main tendencies 
of the Spanish school can be recognized. Realism, in which it 
is always steeped, is of course the dominant note of this school, 
but it has periodically thrown off into the realms of the imag- 
inative some such surprising offshoot as El Greco, the mystic, 
and as the magician Goya. In their hands this persistent, in- 
vading realism attacks what is most transcendental or most 
fantastic, and gives it a dense material existence. Although 
Zuloaga reverses the process, we may salute in him the appa- 
rition of a corresponding power. His material belongs to 
reality and is of the earth, earthy; but, as if whirled to another 


84 


OUTLINE SKETCH OF SARGENT’S LIFE 


planet, it seems to acknowledge the grip of new laws and to 
acquire a keener life from new relationships imposed by this 
great artist’s imperious will. 


This thoughtful and original bit of criticism gives us a rare 
and precious glimpse into the workings of Sargent’s mind, an 
impressive hint of his knowledge and acumen, and a welcome 
confirmation of one’s belief in his intellectual integrity. Note 
the mention of Goya and El Greco. Note the omission of any 
allusion to Velasquez. Sargent always turned to the unusual 
men; he always enjoyed the unusual subject; he realized that 
in the most realistic pictures there may be much more than 
stark realism; in this penetrating appreciation of Zuloaga he 
unconsciously outlined some of his own ideals. It is the more 


interesting because the naturalism and austerity of the art of 
the Spaniards had such a significant part in the early forma- 


tion of his own style. There was surely something in his 
nature which responded intuitively to the very qualities that 
he imputed to the Spanish masters. 

The Sargent exhibition of 1924 in New York placed him 
in the limelight, On the sides of the motor buses in the avenue 
his name stood out in great letters; for four or five weeks the 
Grand Central Galleries were crowded; the man and his art 
were the talk of the town; had he not been buried alive in 
Boston these eight or ten years past? And now, resurrected, 
was he not to be explained, evaluated, compared, and judged 
in the highest court? 


85 


OUTLINE SKETCH OF SARGENT’S LIFE 


The enterprising management of the new galleries over the 
railroad station made the most of the occasion, and furnished 
the press with many resounding superlatives. It is pleasant to 
record the fact that the show brought a tidy sum to the coffers 
of the new art society, for, with characteristic esprit de corps, 
Sargent turned over all the profits to the codperative associa- 
tion of artists holding the exhibition, capitalizing his prestige 
for the benefit of the endowment fund. 

The catalogue of the collection contained an appreciation 
signed by William Lyon Phelps, in which he called Sargent 
the greatest living American, and the foremost living painter 
in the world. “So far as one can judge the work of a contem- 
porary,” wrote Professor Phelps, “one is justified in predicting 
immortality for these compositions. Sargent belongs among 
the great portrait painters of all time, his pictures revealing 
the mysterious but unmistakable stamp of genius. In fact, 
everything he does shows this quality, which makes his paint- 
ing the envy of competitors and the pride and glory of Ameri- 
can art.” 

The collection, which was assembled by the artist himself, 
was retrospective, containing several early works which had 
not been seen in New York. Sixty oil paintings and twelve 
water colors, a total of seventy-two works, were shown, form- 
ing the most comprehensive exhibition of Sargent’s works 
ever held, with the exception of the Boston exhibition of 1899, 


where the total number of works was one hundred and ten. 


86 


OUTLINE SKETCH OF SARGENT’S LIFE 


Not all of the critics agreed with Professor Phelps’ esti- 
mate of Sargent’s genius. The writers for the World and the 
Herald, both of them partisans of modernism, voiced the sen- 
timents of the opposition. Their disparagement was both open 
and covert. hese men were broader in their outlook, and 
certainly far subtler and better informed, than their London 
predecessors of forty years before. They wielded rapiers rather 
than bludgeons. They did not by any means denounce Sargent 
as a heretic because of his disregard of academic formule; 
quite the contrary. They used satire and innuendo with the 
purpose of delicately insinuating that his drawing was weak, 
his color commonplace, his perception of character superficial. 
One of them went out of his way to hint that Miss Ada 
Rehan’s facial expression proved she did not belong to New 
York’s four hundred. Another proclaimed his belief that 
Sargent ranked lower than Cézanne. Casually, as if mention- 
ing a fact well known to all, one writer spoke in a tone of mild 
regret of Sargent’s “failure as a mural painter.” The inge- 
nious fashion in which such insidious doubts as to Sargent’s 
ability were carefully strewn amongst paragraphs of faint 
praise was, in its way, admirable. 

The other side of the question was ably upheld by the 
Tribune, the Times, the Evening Post; but it is quite possible 
that the hostility of the modernists had more to do with the 
success of the exhibition than any amount of favorable notice. 


There is no reason for refusing to attempt an estimate of an 


87 


OUTLINE SKETCH OF SARGENT’S LIFE 


artist’s achievement simply because he is of our own time. A 
good part of the apparent modesty of the critic who says “It 
is too early to bring in a verdict upon this man’s art”, is due 
either to mental laziness or the fear of making a blunder. 
Incompetence rather than propinquity should be blamed for 
most of the errors of contemporaneous criticism. Posterity 
will not be immune from mistakes. Those who take the 
trouble to read the various comments cited in the annotated 
catalogue will not fail to note here and there, with mingled 
resentment and amusement, the twaddle put forth in the guise 
of art criticism. Some specimens of this stuff might well be 
preserved as curiosities, and that is one of the reasons for in- 
cluding them here. The existence of writers capable of such 
pedantries and ineptitudes, and the fact that they were taken 
seriously by a credulous constituency, is a part of the history 
of the time in which Sargent lived and worked. Much of what 
was intended to be inimical really amounted to unintentional 
praise. Harry Quilter’s elaborate definition of modern French 
methods of painting, in his article on the Misses Vickers group, 
was virtually a fairly accurate description of what nowadays 
one would call good painting. And yet he was so sure that it 
was all wrong, in fact, worse than wrong, wicked, perhaps 
because it, was French, that he followed it up with the amaz- 
ing 20n sequitur, “What good is it? ” 

No human being, he cries, except a painter, can take any 
pleasure in it. He takes it for granted that the public to which 


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OUTLINE SKETCH OF SARGENT’S LIFE 


he addresses himself is as ignorant as himself; that painters 
alone can appreciate and enjoy good painting. It is the old 
story: what he does not understand he dislikes, and what he 
dislikes is shallow, pretentious, and untrue. This is the perfect 
flower of ignorance and provincial narrow-mindedness. 

So far as criticism has made a serious attempt to place 
Sargent definitely where he belongs in the hierarchy of great 
portrait painters, the tendency has been either to overestimate 
or underestimate him. It appears not unlikely that he will 
eventually take rank in an intermediate position, below the 
first-rate men, such as Velasquez, Hals, Holbein, Titian, and 
Rembrandt, and certainly rather higher up than the majority 
of the British painters of the eighteenth century. 

An interesting venture in comparisons, which was written 
some time ago by Joseph Simpson, R.B.A., and published in 
the London Weekly Dispatch, had these remarks in it: 


If his work be compared with that of Raeburn, Reynolds 
or Gainsborough, it will be found that he can hold his own 
with anything but their very best. . . . Of the three, Sargent 
has more in common with Raeburn. His work has the same 
virility and manliness, and is founded on a similar miraculous 
skill in handling paint that amazes the beholder. No painter 
paints with such certainty and directness. He may not be as 
great a colorist as Reynolds, but he challenges comparison in 
every other way. Reynolds, in my opinion, never painted 
anything better than the Misses Wertheimer. He [Sargent] 
certainly has not what is generally called Gainsborough’s 
“charm.” He is too masculine a painter, and his best makes 


89 


OUTLINE SKETCH OF SARGENT’S LIFE 


Gainsborough look a little superficial and pretty-pretty. There 
is less of the art of the chocolate box lid about his work. In 
short, he is generally as good as any of the three great English 
masters of portraiture, and, more often than not, better than 
Romney, Hoppner, or Lawrence. 


For an Englishman, and a R.B.A., that is saying a good 
deal. It might be interesting to pursue farther this game of 
comparisons, to marshal all the great names, and arrange them 
in the order of respective merit, but, as Harry Quilter would 
say, what good is it? 

The criticism which denies him the capacity of giving any- 
thing beyond externals would appear to imply that this limi- 
tation constitutes a serious defect. Many are the changes that 
have been rung on this theme. He “keeps us very near to, if not 
upon, the surface of things and people.” He “is not an inter- 
preter.” He “does not care, as a rule, to penetrate into the 
depths of the mental and emotional individuality.” ‘His 
affair is with shapes and external aspects, not with the mean- 
ing of them.” All this may be so, yet the inference drawn 
from it, that the portraits are superficial in character, would 
not necessarily follow. We are not to forget that the painter’s 
job is to paint the visible aspect of things, and that this applies 
with especial force to the work of the portraitist. 

Study the masterpieces of portraiture wherever you find 
them, and ask yourself if it is not true that the painter has set 


down what he saw without trying to do much more. Ninety 


go 


OUTLINE SKETCH OF SARGENT’S LIFE 


per cent. of the so-called psychology for which we give him 
credit is a simple matter of good draughtsmanship. If the 
sitter be a demigod, we shall not fail to perceive the marks and 
signs in his countenance. 

See, what a grace was seated on this brow: 

Hyperion’s curls; the front of Jove himself; 

An eye like Mars, to threaten and command. .. . 

And if the sitter be a fair lady, who would wish to have the 
painter add or subtract anything to or from her beauty? Can 
art enhance it or explain it? 

“TI am looking at a half-tone reproduction of a lady by 
Sargent, wondering whether in the history of English portrait 
painting an artist has approached as closely to the thoughts of 
his sitter,” writes T. Martin Wood. ‘The expression of the 
face is determined partly by thoughts within, partly by light 
without. And it is as if with the touch of a brush a thought 
could be intercepted as it passed the lips. This is the nearest 
approach that thought has ever had to material definition. 
Thought is the architect of her expression; by accuracy of 
painting it is copied, just as the back of a fan or bracelet is 
copied—things so material as that. So, after all, thoughts are 
not so far away from the material world with which we are in 
touch; are scarcely less visible than air.” 

This is only another way of saying that good portrait paint- 
ing is not so much idealization as realization. It is purely a 


matter of observation carried to the 7th power, backed by 


on 


OUTLINE SKETCH OF SARGENT’S LIFE 


training and temperament. If Sargent’s portraits had no other 
qualities than their vitality, that alone would be enough to 
give them a place among the masterpieces. They have life. 

Moreover, the best of them have the inestimable negative 
merit of reserve. Nor are they weakened by sentimentality. 
There is no attempt to edit nature. Sargent’s style, brilliant as 
it often is, may be likened to a pure and noble prose, devoid of 
flowery adjectives, and depending for its force upon the un- 
aided might of truth. He is concise, pithy, sententious. As to 
sympathy, he is unable to feel or show it with respect to all the 
subjects equally, since feigning is foreign to his nature, but 
when he has to’ deal with an unmistakably fine type of char- 
acter, one perceives at once that he responds to the unvoiced 
call of a superior personality. 

No one has painted childhood and youth with a fuller reali- 
zation of their charm. His pictures of children, lovely as they 
are, have no excess of tenderness, no effusive display of sen- 
timent, and in the last analysis this sobriety of feeling con- 
stitutes the most enduring element of excellence. 

His portraits of beautiful women—and fortune has been 
kind to him in this regard—seem all the more perfect in their 
allure because one is so certain that he never descends to flat- 
terv. Supremely felicitous are certain pages of his art on which 
he has given expression to the sheer pride of life in all its 
glowing if transitory exuberance. And not less happy are those 


pictures of the more spiritual types of womanly character in 


92 


OUTLINE SKETCH OF SARGENT’S LIFE 


which the best civilization of our time finds its choicest em- 
bodiment. 

While it would be too much to claim that Sargent never 
repeats himself, his disposition to make bold experiments and 
to seek new solutions of the problems of design which beset 
the portraitist is assuredly to be commended. His departures 
from precedent in respect to composition have been many; 
they have not been successful always; yet the attempt to avoid 
too well-worn conventions was in itself worth while. 

In his subject pictures he has shown preéminently the same 
clear-sighted objectivity that marks his portrait work. His 
early interiors with figures, the smallish gray pictures painted 
in Spain and Italy, such as the “Spanish Courtyard”, the 
“Venetian Interior”, and the “Venetian Bead Stringers’’, 
have as distinct a cachet of their own as a Vermeer or a Char- 
din. In other words, they are in their kind of a perfection that 
leaves little to be desired. Slight, sketchy, almost casual these 
scenes seem at first glance, yet as they are examined they im- 
press and charm us more and more, and in the end convince us 
that no painter succeeds better than he in attaining, through 
the unity of form and color, the very aspect of life itself. 

Sargent’s preéminent personal qualities were his genuine- 
ness, probity, seriousness, dignity, humility, and industry. He 
was always honest, sincere and simple. He took his art seri- 
ously, lived in and for it. His artistic conscience required him 
to give nothing less than the best that he was capable of giving. 


ae 


OUTLINE SKETCH OF SARGENT’S LIFE 


In our day his modesty must be accounted a rare and beautiful 
trait. Adulation had no power to make him vainglorious. He 
made the most of himself, was utterly absorbed in his work, 
and found the days all too short for what he had to do. 

His Boston studio, in Columbus Avenue, was nothing but a 
workshop. There, in the early summer of 1924, he was toiling 
over the mural paintings for the great staircase hall of the 
Museum of Fine Arts, his last completed mural works. In his 
soiled working clothes, with a cigarette between his lips, he 
would greet the caller with a reproachful glance, as much as 
to say, ““Why do you interrupt me in the midst of my labors? ” 
One felt like apologizing for taking up his time. And he was 
not insensible to such an approach. “But you are welcome!” 
If he looked a little bored, it was because he felt that he was 
going to be obliged to talk about himself. 

He preferred to talk about other people—Henry James, 
George Moore, Winslow Homer, Pierre Loti, and other paint- 
ers and authors. It required not a little ingenuity to steer the 
talk back to John S. Sargent. Something like intuition warned 
one to use no flattery, but to stick to plain speech. No one could 
come into contact with Sargent without feeling that all the 
foolish little conventionalities of intercourse were futile; that 
he tacitly demanded a higher order of sincerity and candor, 
would neither give nor take anything else. He lamented more 
than once his bad memory. 


“I am not usually inclined to take any part in publications 


94 


OUTLINE SKETCH OF SARGENT’S LIFE 


about my work,” he wrote on June 6, 1924; “and doubt if I 
can be of much help to you in the matter you wish to deal with, 
as My memory is pretty bad. . . .”” Nevertheless he was able 
to answer many queries, and gave generously of his time and 
attention. In the matter of dates he was more than uncertain, 
but that is a common weakness. He had forgotten that Mr. 
—— ever sat to him for his portrait, though the catalogue 
of the Royal Academy proved that the work existed. Here 
again there is little occasion for surprise, considering the im- 
mense number of his sitters. 

Speaking of Henry James, one day, he mentioned an early 
book about America and the Americans which contained some 
severe comments. “They were the kind of remarks,” said 
Sargent, “that made some people say he was not a good 
American.” He went on to speak very highly of the book. In 
talking about such subjects Sargent invariably took the point 
of view of an American to the manner born, but not, of course, 
that of a chauvinist. When he spoke of the people who thought 
that James was not a good American, he smiled, and it was 
as if he recalled with amusement certain reflections of the 
quidnuncs who had in times past questioned his own one- 
hundred-per-cent. Americanism. The question used to be dis- 
cussed with a good deal of vigor: Was Sargent an American 
or not? No one who knew him had any doubts about it—not 
even when he called the elevator a lift, or referred to the 


charwoman. The roots of his nationality ran deeper far than 


95 


OUTLINE SKETCH OF SARGENT’S LIFE 


such surface signs as these tricks of speech; by sentiment and 
choice not less than by ancestry he was American to his finger 


tips. 


96 





Courtesy Grand Central Art Galleries, New York 


MRS. HENRY G. MARQUAND 


Collection of Mrs. Allan Marquand, Princeton, New Jerséy 





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IX 


PORTRAIT COM MISSIONS REFUSED——DEATH OF THE ARTIST IN 
192 5—SERVICE IN WESTMINSTER ABBEY——TRIBUTES 


N the first week of July, 1924, Sargent left Boston for 

London, there to carry to completion the mural paintings 

for the great staircase hall of the Museum of Fine Arts, 
Boston, and to undertake two or three portrait commissions 
that he found himself reluctantly obliged to accept. For about 
a decade now he had done his best to avoid portrait work, but 
in spite of all his efforts, so much pressure was brought to bear 
in certain influential quarters that he was virtually forced now 
and again to make exceptions to the rule. The world is inex- 
orable in its demands upon successful specialists; it will not 
allow them to do anything outside of their particular field of 
activity, and it insists that they shall continue to function in 
the same groove. The number of portraits painted by Sargent 
after the year 1915 is the measure of the extraordinary pres- 
sure put upon him to do the kind of work that he had vowed 
he would not do. He refused many commissions, however, 
including some from distinguished personages, and some for 


which immense sums were offered. 


97 


OUTLINE SKETCH OF SARGENT’S LIFE 


It appears that the Queen of Roumania was among the ap- 
plicants for sittings. In a letter from the artist, dated October 
18, 1924, and addressed to Henry H. Pierce of Boston, 


Sargent wrote: 


. . . Lam sorry to have to adhere to my telegraphic mes- 
sage, and to repeat that I have entirely given up portrait 
painting, and have devoted myself entirely to another line of 
work for the last ten or twelve years. I hope it will be under- 
stood that my retirement from portrait painting is a thing of 
many years’ standing. I feel greatly honored at having been 
thought of by Her Majesty the Queen of Roumania, and 
regret very deeply no longer being able to do justice to her 
commands. 


It is easy to understand Sargent’s reasons for giving up 
portrait painting. He was tired of its routine, of the exactions 
and whims of sitters and the trivial faultfinding of their fam- 
ilies; and naturally he felt that at his age he was entitled to 
choose a more congenial and interesting if not an easier kind 
of work. Moreover, he frankly admitted, with his character- 
istic disparagement of his own abilities, that he was losing his 
old touch, his skill of hand, that remarkable facility of facture 
which had been the marvel of his early years and his prime. 
He was brave enough to realize this, and wise enough to act 
upon that realization. So many artists continue to produce 
until they have outlived the best periods, apparently without 
knowing that they have passed the peak and are going down- 


98 


OUTLINE SKETCH OF SARGENT’S LIFE 


hill. Sargent’s self-knowledge was exceptional. He could take 
a detached view of his own work. 

The mural painting that he was at work on for the Museum 
of Fine Arts absorbed him, and he disliked very much any- 
thing that interrupted it. Whether he was greater as a portrait 
painter or asa mural painter it is no part of our present purpose 
to decide; at all events, the mural work had this obvious ad- 
vantage—that it permitted and required invention, put a 
premium upon originality, fancy, imagination, concerned 
itself with abstract ideas and symbols rather than records of 
actual material facts. Years ago he said to a friend in his 
studio, ‘‘Women don’t ask you to make them beautiful, but 
you can feel them wanting you to do so all the time.”” He had 
been so long subject to the galling limitations and annoyances 
of portraiture, that the escape to more creative work, the 
freedom of it, was a most welcome respite; it was almost like 
a holiday. 

His sturdy physique had permitted him to accomplish an 
amazing amount of hard work for something like half a 
century, and his vacations had been few and far between; but 
it was now evident that he was weary. He was on the verge of 
the redoubtable threescore years and ten, after which, accord- 
ing to the psalmist, man’s strength is but labor and sorrow. It 
was his happy fortune to “die in the harness”, and his sudden 
passing was as he would have wished to have it. 

His death occurred in his London house, Number 31 


99 


OUTLINE SKETCH OF SARGENT’S LIFE 


Tite Street, Chelsea, in the early hours of the morning of 
April 15, 1925. He was found dead in bed by Clara Cozens, 
the house parlor-maid, who went to his room to call him at 
eight o’clock that day. As he did not answer her knock, she 
entered the room and discovered him lying in bed on his left 
side. His spectacles were pushed up on his forehead. It looked, 
she said, as if he had been reading and had dropped off to sleep. 
There was a volume by Voltaire on the bed. When he retired 
the night before he had been apparently in good health. Death 
came to him peacefully, in all probability in his sleep. Doctor 
Bronté, pathologist, who made a post-mortem examination, 
stated that the cause of death was heart failure due to fatty 
degeneration of the heart muscles. It was believed by the 
physician that his death took place between three and four 
o’clock in the morning. “He looked peaceful, just like a little 
child sleeping,” said the parlor-maid. The first press reports 
stated that the death was probably due to a stroke; later ad- 
vices, after the post-mortem examination, gave the cause as 
“hardening of the arteries, with fatty degeneration of the 
heart muscles.” 

He had been at work as usual in the studio the day before 
his death. He was engaged in painting the portrait of the 
Princess Mary and her husband, Viscount Lascelles. They sat 
for him some two hours, ora little more. It had been Sargent’s 
intention to sail for Boston, with his sister Emily, on the 


steamship Balzzc, on Saturday, April 18; and he dined at his 


100 


OUTLINE SKETCH OF SARGENT’S LIFE 


sister’s house, not far away from his own, on the evening of 
the fourteenth. Then he appeared to be in his customary 
health and spirits; he left for home about ten o’clock, walked 
home, according to his usual custom, and when the servants 
left him he was sitting in the library, reading. That was the 
last seen of him alive. 

More than one of his friends, on learning the circumstances 
of his death, must have thought what a happy fate it was “‘to 
cease upon the midnight, with no pain.” 

The funeral, which occurred on Saturday, April 18—the 
very day he had meant to sail for America—was kept as 
private as possible, in deference to the wishes of his sisters, 
who knew what would have been the preference of the dead 
man in that regard. The body, which had been lying in the 
private mortuary at the Necropolis station at Waterloo, was 
conveyed by special train to Brookwood, accompanied by the 
two chief mourners, Miss Sargent and Mrs. Ormond, and a 
few of the artist’s closest friends. From the unpretentious 
little chapel, where the simple services for the dead were con- 
ducted by the Reverend H. T. Burrowes, chaplain of the 
cemetery, the little funeral procession moved slowly to the 
grave, the two sisters walking just behind the bier. After the 
body had been committed to the earth, in a spot amidst a 
cluster of evergreen trees in the most secluded part of the 
cemetery, the grave was heaped high with beautiful wreaths, 
sent by the Council of the Royal Academy, the directors of 


IOI 


OUTLINE SKETCH OF SARGENT’S LIFE 


the National Gallery, the American Academy of Arts and 
Sciences, the Sulgrave Institution, the Anglo-American So- 
ciety of Painters in Watercolors, and other artistic and patri- 
otic bodies. 

Impressive memorial services were held in Westminster 
Abbey on Friday, April 24, at noon. This is said to have been 
the first time within the memory of living men that a service 
of this kind for an artist has been held in the national shrine. 
The ancient Abbey was well filled by a most exceptional com- 
pany, the transept being crowded to the doors. During the 
service the flag bearing the ecclesiastical arms was flown at 
half-mast on the Abbey tower. 

While the congregation was assembling the organist played 
choral preludes by Bach and Brahms, and Basil Harwood’s 
“Requiem A‘ternam.” The clergy and choir walked in pro- 
cession from the nave to their seats, singing Croft’s setting of 
the opening sentences of the burial service. The service was 
conducted by the Sub-Dean, Canon Carnegie, assisted by 
Archdeacon Charles, and the Precentor, Reverend L. H. 
Nixon. Following the psalm, “Lord, Thou hast been our 
refuge”’, the choir sang Bridge’s setting of ‘Tennyson’s ‘‘Cross- 
ing the Bar” as a hymn. The lesson, from the twenty-first 
chapter of Revelation, ““And I saw a new heaven and a new 
earth”, was beautifully read, and was followed by Wesley’s 
anthem, “He will swallow up death in victory.” After prayers 
the congregation joined in the hymn, “For all the saints who 


102 


OUTLINE SKETCH OF SARGENT’S LIFE 


from their labors rest.” Then came another brief prayer, 
beseeching for the departed “light and rest, peace and refresh- 
ment, joy and consolation.”” —The Sub-Dean pronounced the 
blessing, and the service closed with the Dead March from 
Saul.” 

During the service it grew dark, April clouds obscuring the 
sun; the lights were turned on in the Abbey; but in a few 
minutes the sun emerged again and shone brightly through 
the beautiful chancel windows. “The sight of this unusual 
audience, with its black costumes and its many silver heads, in 
the conflicting lights, gave an accent to it all that was somehow 
reminiscent of Sargent,”’ wrote the London correspondent of 
the Manchester Guardian. 

The family mourners sat in the South Lantern. The near 
relatives who attended included Miss Sargent, the Honorable 
Mrs. Ewen Montagu, Mr. and Mrs. Ormond, and Mr. and 
Mrs. Hugo Pitman. In the choir Sir Frank Dicksee, P.R.A., 
and many other Academicians had seats. The Archbishop 
of Canterbury and Mrs. Davidson took places near the 
President of the Academy. Sir Philip Sassoon, who is a trustee 
of the National Gallery, represented the Government, and 
Mr. Boylston Beal attended from the United States Embassy. 
Sir Charles Holmes, director of the National Gallery, and 
Mr. J. D. Milner, director of the National Portrait Gallery, 
were present, and among the other bodies represented were the 
Royal Cambrian Academy, the Royal Society of Painters in 


103 


OUTLINE SKETCH OF SARGENT’S LIFE 


Watercolors, the Fitzwilliam Museum at Cambridge, the 
British School at Rome, and the Royal Society of British 
Sculptors. 

Among the congregation, in addition to those already men- 
tioned, were Marchioness Curzon of Kedleston, the Countess 
of Gosford, Honorable Patrick Acheson, Viscount Dillon, 
Lord D’Abernon, Lord and Lady Lawrence of Kingsgate, 
Honorable Lady Mallet, Lady Horner, Lady Leslie, Lady 
Cunliffe, Lady Cope, Lady Low, Sir Frederick and Lady 
Pollock, Edith Lady Playfair, Lady Busk, Sir Frank Swetten- 
ham, Lady Prothero, Sir Brumwell Thomas, General Sir Ian 
Hamilton, Lady Frampton, Lady Burnet, Lady Short, Mr. 
Augustine Birrell, Mr. C. H. Collins Baker (representing the 
New English Art Club), Mr. Lewis Hind, Mr. Philip de 
Laszlo, Mr. Croal Thomson, Mr. Wilson Steer, Mr. Evelyn 
Shaw, Mr. Frederick Ruch, Alderman H. A. Cole (repre- 
senting the Liverpool Libraries, Museums and Arts Commit- 
tee), and many personages known to the world through 
Sargent’s portraits. 

The Royal Academy was represented by all of its officers 
and a noteworthy number of Academicians and associates. 
Besides the president, there were the keeper, Mr. Charles 
Sims; the treasurer, Sir Frank Short; and the secretary, Mr. 
W. R. M. Lamb, with the following Academicians: Mr. 
Walter Ouless, Sir Luke Fildes, Sir Hamo Thornycroft, Sir 
David Murray, Mr. Solomon J. Solomon, Mr. W. L. Wylie, 


104 





MRS. EDWARD D. BOIT 


Collection of the Misses Boit, Paris 


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OUTLINE SKETCH OF SARGENT’S LIFE 


Mr. George Clausen, Sir William Goscombe John, Sir Arthur 
Cope, Mr. Stanhope Forbes, Mr. Alfred Drury, Mr. Henry 
Tuke, Sir Reginald Blomfield, Mr. J. A. Arnesby Brown, 
Mr. Joseph Farquharson, Mr. Adrian Stokes, Sir David Cam- 
eron, Mr. Richard Jack, Sir William Llewellyn, Mr. Julius 
Olsson, Mr. Derwent Wood, Sir John Lavery, Mr. R. Anning 
Bell, Mr. Maurice Greiffenhagen, Sir Bertram McKennal, 
Sir Gilbert Scott, Mr. Henry Pegram, Mr. Glyn Philpot, Mr. 
Bertram Priestman, Mr. Melton Fisher, Mr. C. L. Hartwell. 

Associates of the Royal Academy in attendance were: Mr. 
Herbert Baker, Mr. W. G. de Glehn, Mr. W. Reid Dick, Mr. 
W. Russell Flint, Mr. Oliver Hall, Mr. George Harcourt, 
Mr. Sydney Lee, Mr. A. J. Munnings, Mr. Malcolm Osborne, 
Mr. Henry Poole, Professor E. S. Prior, Mr. H. Macbeth- 
Raeburn, Mr. Walter Russell, Mr. A. L. Swinnerton, Mr. 
Algernon Talmage, Mr. Alfred Turner, Mr. L. Campbell 
Taylor, Mr. G. Spencer Watson. 

It would be difficult to exaggerate the extent and depth of 
the sensation which was caused by the news of Sargent’s death. 
Spread throughout the world with electric speed, it was fol- 
lowed by a flood of obituary notices, anecdotes, reminiscences, 
and personal tributes in the press of all lands, but more espe- 
cially in England and the United States. A solemn high mass 
of requiem was sung in the Church of Saint John the Evan- 
gelist in Boston, on the same day as the memorial service in 


Westminster Abbey in London. In art museums in England, 


105 


OUTLINE SKETCH OF SARGENT’S LIFE 


America, France, and Italy, the desire to show honor to the 
dead artist was manifested by the display of memorial wreaths 
hanging beneath his pictures. From London came the an- 
nouncement that the Royal Academy would organize a com- 
prehensive loan exhibition of Sargent’s works for the autumn 
or winter exhibition. There was intense curiosity to see a 
representative collection of his pictures brought together in 
England, since, strange to say, there had never been one on 
anything like the scale of the Boston exhibition of 1899 or the 
New York exhibition of 1924. 

It was officially announced that the mural decorations for 
the staircase’ hall of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston had 
been completed and that the last of the panels had been 
shipped from England only eleven days prior to the painter’s 
death. The Museum also announced that it would organize a 
memorial exhibition in the autumn, at the time of the formal 
unveiling of the mural paintings. In the meanwhile an infor- 
mal exhibition of seventeen oil paintings, fifty-odd water 
colors, and twelve drawings was immediately opened in the 
Museum, on April 29, as a tribute of respect. ‘This collection 
contained all of the works belonging to the permanent collec- 
tion of the Museum, “The Children of Edward D. Boit” 
being the most important example; and a few portraits lent by 
the owners, comprising those of the members of the Brooks 
family, of General Paine, of Mrs. Hunnewell, and others. 


Eloquent and moving were many of the press articles called 


106 


OUTLINE SKETCH OF SARGENT’S LIFE 


forth by the artist’s death. “More than a painter of genius is 
lost to the world,” said the London Times. “Let fashions in 
painting come and go, the contents of the new Sargent Gal- 
lery will ever be capital documents in the art, the social history, 
and the psychology of his age.” ‘“The man, indeed, was a 
master,” said the Daily Telegraph, “of whom no unworthy 
saying or action is recorded, above jealousy, above popularity- 
seeking, above the desire of amassing riches, devoted to the 
sister arts of music and painting and to that other art of living 
which he practised so well that no one who knew him has 
anything but praise of his spirit of comradeship and the deep- 
est regret at his loss.”” ““He was a painter born, a painter dedi- 
cated, and a painter trained,” said the Morning Post. “His 
realism was so great that it took the quality of imagination. 
. . . He has left the world rich in a long series of portraits, 
every one of them in its own way a masterpiece.” 

“Measured in terms of pure painting John Sargent was one 
of the giants, a figure in modern art comparable only to the 
great leaders in the old historic periods,” said the New York 
Herald-Tribune. “In registering the tangible fact he was 
magnificently proficient, adding to his record of the fact a 
beguiling note of style. He never in his life deliberately ro- 
manticized a theme, but he was too much of an artist ever to 
leave it exactly as he found it. The truth painted by Sargent 
was always truth raised to a higher power, made more inter- 
esting through the beauty of his art.” 


107 


OUTLINE SKETCH OF SARGENT’S LIFE 


‘Although portraiture may turn out to be Mr. Sargent’s 
most public monument, by which his quality will be most 
readily measured,” said the New York Times, “other sides of 
his art have at least as much to say of the nature of his gift and 
of his mental wealth. At one pole of his self-expression stand 
the splendid notes of travel and holiday, in which, with an 
authority quite unequaled in his formal canvases, he has 
resolved the complicated appearances of an outdoor scene into 
a coherent design. At the other pole are his long series of 
decorations for the Boston Library. In the latter he put his 
racial interest in things of the spirit and his profound literary 
experience. It is a liberal legacy to have left to one’s country.” 

“There seemed to be no limits to his achievements,” said 
A. J. Philpott in the Boston Globe. “He seemed to do with 
equal facility anything in painting he cared to turn his hand 
to. His genius proved equal to every emergency. . . . He 
was not of the schools. He was eclectic, bigger than any school. 
He moved ina sphere apart. He was a law unto himself in art. 
Sargent is gone, but he will always rank with the immortals 
tarts: 

“Creator, draughtsman, painter, in the truest sense of the 
word a gentleman, but finally, above all, and as I firmly be- 
lieve he himself would like best to be known, a master work- 
man,” wrote Thomas A. Fox in the Boston Transcript. 

“His art, besides other good attributes, had a tremendous 
physique,”’ said the Manchester Guardian. “You felt that a 

108 


OUTLINE SKETCH OF SARGENT’S LIFE 


giant full of high spirits would paint such pictures if he knew 
how; when you stand opposite the row of Wertheimer por- 
traits in the National Gallery and think of the speed at which 
they were painted, the mighty bouts of concentrated work, the 
large firm hold of the artist upon a unifying design and inten- 
tion, the gusto and impetus which never failed him, you may 
feel that he has not the divinely penetrating sympathy of 
Rembrandt, nor all the lightsome sparkle of Hals; but still 
you feel that he is at any rate one of the athletes of art, a man 
of swift, powerful, striding talent, who smashes his way 
through all the more obvious difficulties in the way of pro- 
ducing great pictures.” 

P. G. Konody, writing of Sargent’s place in art, in the 
London Observer, asked, ‘“Was his enormous reputation jus- 
tified? Is he really a painter of the very first rank?” And he 
answers his own questions thus: “In my view there can be 
but one answer to these questions. Purely and simply as an 
objective painter, as a man setting down on canvas his visual 
impressions in a brilliant and convincing way, Sargent can 
hold his own with any painter who ever lived.” 

One of the most interesting and valuable articles called 
forth by the death of the artist was that contributed to the 
London Observer of Sunday, April 19, by a friend who signed 
himself J. H. H. In refuting the current legend that Sargent 
sought and emphasized the unpleasing traits of his sitters, this 
writer notes that Sargent himself dismissed the silly idea with 


109 


OUTLINE SKETCH OF SARGENT’S LIFE 


these words, “I chronicle; I do not judge.” In another para- 
graph J. H. H. well says, ““He loved Plato’s definition of 
beauty as ‘the splendor of the true.’ To that splendor he con- 
tributed, with the scrupulous yet generous spontaneity of his 
work, with the broadmindedness, the indulgence, the tolera- 
tion, and the sincerity of his character. He leaves as an inher- 
itance for the artists of all time the unstained record of a noble 
and laborious life.” 

In person, Sargent was a tall, burly, bearded man, with a 
full face of sanguine complexion, dark hair, rather prominent 
blue eyes, and strongly marked eyebrows. He gave the impres- 
sion of great strength combined with gentleness and sensi- 
bility. The late Sir Claude Phillips once remarked that his 
massive stature and splendid physique were hardly a fitting 
envelope for the swiftness and subtlety of his spirit. His 
manner, bearing, and conversational tone were so unaffected, 
simple, and easy, that one was somewhat at a loss to account 
for the latent dignity and authority that emanated from his 
personality. 

Intellectual independence was perhaps the keynote of his 
mental attitude, testifies one who knew him well. He made 
his own discoveries and accepted nothing at second hand. That 
independence was the background for his reserve, a reserve 
inviolable to the most intimate of his friends. The admiration 
and affection which he frequently inspired were never with- 
out a compelling restraint, ‘even a secret chastening sense of 


IIO 


OUTLINE SKETCH OF SARGENT’S LIFE 


awe from which there was no escape.”’ On the last night of 
his life an old friend, upon leaving after dinner, said half- 
laughingly to his sister, “Do you know, I am still a little 
terrified of your brother. This is not a case of ‘perfect love 
casting out fear.’ ” 

Some instances of Sargent’s kindness, generosity and con- 
sideration have already been cited; it will be long before the 
countless episodes illustrative of these traits of his character 
are all known. The late Charles Furse loved to relate how, 
when engaged on one of his decorations, at a distance of sev- 
eral hours from London, he wrote to his friend begging for 
a few lines of advice, confessing that he was “‘stuck”’, and 
enclosing, with a small diagram of the space to be covered, a 
careful analysis of his difficulties. On the following morning, 
before an answer could be expected, Furse was on the scaf- 
folding, at work, when a head appeared at the top of the 
ladder. This was the head of John Sargent, who, without a 
moment’s hesitation, canceling all his other engagements, had 
taken an early train from London, so that there might be, 
for Charles Furse, to whom he was warmly attached, the 
smallest loss of time. 

When Robert Brough was mortally injured in the terrible 
accident to the Scotch express, the news reached London late 
in the evening. A few friends met in a studio in the early 
hours of the next morning, to discuss what could be done for 


him, whether one of their number should not go at once to 


III 


OUTLINE SKETCH OF SARGENT’S LIFE 


Sheffield to stand by him and to do whatever was possible. It 
was decided to consult Sargent, and a deputation went at once 
to rouse him, even though it was only a little after seven 
o’clock in the morning. At the door in Tite Street they were 
met by his manservant leaving the house with a sheaf of tele- 
grams. ‘Mr. Sargent heard of Mr. Brough’s accident late last 
night,” he said, “and he took the six o’clock train for Sheffield 
this morning.” The sight of his great friend was Robert 
Brough’s last personal triumph, for within an hour he sank 
into the unconsciousness that prefaced his end. 

One of the best stories about Sargent is that told by a writer 
for the Daily Telegraph. When an artist friend of his, a much 
younger man than himself, died just as he was beginning to be 
famous, and left a number of canvases unfinished, Sargent 
undertook for friendship’s sake to finish them, without fee or 
reward. That, in the opinion of the editorial writer in ques- 
tion, “‘is a testimony to character worth many a page of bril- 
liant repartee.” 

Painters and students of painting will be interested in an 
account of Sargent’s method of making a head. Mr. John 
Collier, some years ago, ina lecture before the Society of Arts, 
made public the notes that one of Sargent’s pupils had taken. 
Briefly, there was first a careful drawing of the masses, to- 
gether with the correct placing of the subject on the canvas, 
with spots giving the exact location of the features. Then, 


with a large brush and with plenty of paint, the tone and color 


112 





Courtesy Grand Central Art Galleries, New York 


MRS) CHARLES: B. INCHES 


Inches Collection 





OUTLINE SKETCH OF SARGENT’S LIFE 


of the background were put in, the background being allowed 
to overlap the borders of the portrait. Next, a kind of middle 
tone was painted over the whole flesh space—light on the light 
side and dark on the dark—the tone being painted right into 
the background; background into flesh and vice versa until the 
effect of blending or melting of the one into the other was 
obtained. There were yet no features. Finally, for the first 
day’s work, the broad tones, in which might be said to dwell 
the several features, were painted into the big middle tone 
while it was wet, and care was again taken to have color, tone 
and drawing right, and to observe subtly the various relations 
in tone of the darks and lights. Later on, after this painting 
was dry, it was oiled out and the ground was gone over again 
much in the same way, the values of the underpainting being 
retained by thin rework over it. To this description of the 
painter’s practice another student added the further remark 
that at the end of the day everything was brushed together 
while the paint was still wet so as to get rid of the sharp edges 
——an approximation to Hals’s “indeterminate blur.” 
Sargent’s phenomenal feats of rapidity have been described 
in glowing terms by those who had the privilege of watching 
him at work. The ability to make a portrait in an hour or less 
appears almost like a miracle of skill. D. Croal Thomson was 
in the studio one day while Sargent was painting the portrait 
of William M. Chase, now in the Metropolitan Museum of 


Art, and he asserts that it was completed in less than an hour. 


mi 


OUTLINE SKETCH OF SARGENT’S LIFE 


One of the great advantages, possibly the chief advantage, of 
this exceptional facility, is the capacity for seizing the tran- 
sient expression of the face and the momentary attitude or 
movement of the body; and it is conceded that in this impor- 
tant respect Sargent’s portraits are unsurpassed. Quickness in 
and of itself is perhaps a minor merit; it is only when it is 
combined with the vitality and verisimilitude of the artist’s 
works that it becomes a real asset. The same thing applies with 
still more force to paintings of gemre such as interiors with 
figures. There is no single quality more unexpected, original 
or charming, in Sargent’s best pictures of episodes and places, 
than the wonderful action, swing, allure of the figures; it is as 
lifelike and nervous as anything from the hand of Degas. 


114 


X 


HONORS——-M EDALS——DEGREES——ORDERS 


MONG the honorary degrees, medals, prizes, awards, 
orders, and other distinctions conferred upon Sargent, 
were the following: 


LL.D., University of Pennsylvania, 1903. D.C.L., Oxford 
University, 1904. D.D.L., Cambridge University, 1913. 
LL.D., Yale University, 1916. Art.D., Harvard University, 
1916. 

Honorable mention, Paris Salon, 1878. Second class medal, 
Paris Salon, 1881. Medal of Honor, Paris Exposition, 1889. 
Medal of Art Club of Philadelphia, 1890. Medal of Colum- 
bian Exposition, Chicago, 1893. Temple gold medal of 
Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, 1894. Medal of 
Honor, Paris Exposition, 1900. Gold medal of Pan-Ameri- 
can Exposition, Buffalo, 1901. Converse gold medal, Penn- 
sylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, 1903. Gold medal, Ber- 
lin, 1903. Grand prize of St. Louis Exposition, 1904. Gold 
Medal of Honor, Liége, 1905. Gold medal of Venice inter- 
national exposition, 1907. Beck gold medal of Pennsylvania 
Academy of the Fine Arts, 1909. Gold Medal of Honor of 
National Institute of Arts and Letters, 1914. Gold medal of 
Panama-Pacific Exposition, 1915. 


ris 


OUTLINE SKETCH OF SARGENT’S LIFE 


Associate, National Academy of Design, 1891. National 
Academician, 1897. Associate, Royal Academy, 1894. Royal 
Academician, 1897. Chevalier, Legion of Honor, 1889. 
Officer, Legion of Honor, 1897. Order Pour le Mérite, 1909. 
Order of Leopold of Belgium, 1909. 

Member: Académie des Beaux-Arts. Institut de France. 
American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Academy of Na- 
ples. Academy of Milan. Academy of San Luca of Rome. 
Berlin Academy. National Institute of Arts and Letters. 
Societé Nationale des Beaux-Arts. Society of American Art- 
ists. Society of Mural Painters. Society of Portrait Painters. 
Royal Society of Water Color Painters. New English Art 
Club. Athenaeum Club, London. Century Club, New York. 

Honorary member: Copley Society of Boston. Guild of 
Boston Artists. Philadelphia Watercolor Club. American 
Institute of Architects. 


116 


PA Rede tr 


OIL PAINTINGS 
STUDIES AND SKETCHES 


WATER COLORS AND DRAWINGS 
WITH NOTES 





OIL PAINTINGS 
STUDIES AND SKETCHES 
WATER COLORS AND DRAWINGS 
WITH NOTES 


The arrangement is chronological, but the correctness of the dates cannot 
be guaranteed in all cases. A few of the pictures and sketches are not placed 
in their chronological order; these will be found at the end of the catalogue. 


HEAD OF A WOMAN 
Study made in the Carolus Duran atelier in Paris, in December, 1874. The 
three-quarters front face is that of a black-eyed and black-haired model, 
wearing a black Spanish headdress, a white hair ribbon falling in a knot 
over the nape of the neck, and large gold earrings of circular form. 
Signed and dated. Canvas: 1534 x 1234 inches. 


‘HE OCTOPUS Frederic Fairchild Sherman collection 


A realistic still-life study of a hideous devil-fish. It was painted in 1875, 
when the artist was nineteen years old, during a trip on board a fishing- 
smack off the coast of Brittany. Canvas: 16 x 1234 inches. 


REHEARSAL OF PASDELOUP ORCHESTRA AT THE CIRQUE 
D’HIVER [Sketch] Boston Art Museum 


Exhibited at Sargent loan exhibition, Copley Hall, Boston, 1899; at Boston 
Art Museum, 1925. 

An interesting and piquant monochrome sketch in oil of a large orchestra 
playing in a great amphitheatre. The black clothes of the musicians and the 
dark shapes of their instruments make remarkably picturesque silhouettes 
against the light warm grays of the curving benches. In the drawing of the 
numerous figures, which are seen from one side and a little to the rear of 
the group, there is an extraordinary suggestion of rhythmical action, vigor- 
ous, emotional, and well coédrdinated. The conductor, waving his baton; 
the row of bass-viol players whose black-coated backs, turned towards us, 
are eloquent of eager absorption in their performance; the kettledrum artist 


119 


CATALOGUE OF JOHN SINGER SARGENT 


crouching as he manipulates his drumsticks; and the more distant members 
of the band, each one so seriously and ardently throwing himself into his 
work—all these are so wonderfully observed and so truly set forth, with 
just the right touch, that it is not difficult for the observer to imagine him- 
self present in person at the rehearsal. Inscribed: “Rehearsal at Cirque 


d’Hiver,” and signed. 1876. 


GITANA Metropolitan Museum, New York 
Exhibited at New York, 1898; at Philadelphia, 1899; at Panama-Pacific 
Exposition, San Francisco, 1915. 

A life-size study of a gypsy woman, seen to the waist; she wears a red 
drapery, and her black hair is tightly braided. 
Signed, 1876. 


PORTRAIT DE MLLE. W. 
Exhibited at Paris Salon, 1877. 


MRS. H. F. HADDEN 


Exhibited at Paris Universal Exposition of 1878; at Grand Central Gal- 
leries, New York, 1924. 

Painted in 1878. Half-length; full front. The face, of a regular oval 
shape, looks out very soberly from a dark background, with an intent and 
steady gaze from the deep-set eyes. Mrs. Hadden was the sister of Miss 
Burckhardt, the subject of the “Lady with a Rose” (Salon of 1881). This 
was one of Sargent’s earliest portraits. He painted, in all, four portraits of 
the members of the Burckhardt family—Mr. Burckhardt, Miss Burckhardt, 
Mrs. Hadden, and a double portrait of Mrs. Burckhardt and her daughter. 


EN ROUTE POURLAPECHE Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington 
(OYSTER GATHERERS OF CANCALE) 
Exhibited at Paris Salon, 1878; at Rhode Island School of Design, 1895; 
at Pennsylvania Academy, 1903; at Boston Art Museum, 1904. 
A pleasing early composition. Formerly in the collection of Samuel Col- 
man, the artist, Newport, Rhode Island. It was painted in 1878, when 
Sargent was twenty-two years of age. It represents a sunny day on the beach 
at Cancale, Brittany, where a group of oyster gatherers, women and chil- 
dren, are moving down towards the water. Light silvery clouds only partly 


120 





MISS ELLEN TERRY AS LADY MACBETH 


Courtesy of The Tate Gallery, London 
and William Heinemann, Ltd., London 


OIL PAINTINGS, STUDIES AND SKETCHES 


obscure the blue sky, which is reflected here and there in the pools left by 
the receding tide on the sands, The air is clear and sparkling, the sunshine 
brilliant, the color pure and pleasing. The manner in which the figures take 
their places in the composition is natural and excellent. 

As brilliant a work in some respects as this great painter has ever produced, 
and as charming a picture as one may find in any of the great galleries of 
the world. . . . Sargent has not idealized these oyster gatherers. They are 
simple peasants and without special beauty, but they are vital and human, 
and the play of light on their clothing lends charm tothe composition. .. . 
Looking at this picture is as looking through a window, from indoor shadow 
to outdoor light, yet there is no forcing of effect, no exaggeration—mere 
facts, beautifully seen and very truly interpreted.—Leila Mechlin. 

It is said that Mr. Sargent liked his forgotten “Oyster Gatherers” when he 
ran across it at the Corcoran Gallery. It is proof of strength when a painter 
can look back some forty years and see that he was good. And Sargent was 
amazingly good in the “Oyster Gatherers,” painted when he was twenty- 
two years old.— New York Times. 


LOW TIDE, CANCALE Mr. and Mrs. Henry H. Sherman collection 
Exhibited at Boston Art Museum, 1916 and 1925. 


MUSSEL GATHERERS Mrs. Carroll Beckwith collection 
Exhibited at Grand Central Galleries, New York, 1924. 


A SUMMER IDYLL Brooklyn Museum 
Exhibited at New English Art Club, London, 1911. 
The top of a dark grassy bank divides the upper half of the composition hor- 
izontally. On this bank, and silhouetted against a partly clouded blue sky, 
three nude childish sylvan figures recline. One of these figures is playing 
the pipes. This arcadian scene is painted in a low key, and gives the impres- 
sion of a sunless summer afternoon. 
Painted in Paris, 1878 or 1879. Signed and inscribed, ““To my friend 
Walton.” Canvas: 1234 x 16 inches. 


M. CAROLUS DURAN 


Exhibited at Paris Salon of 1879; at one hundred and sixteenth exhibition 
of Pennsylvania Academy, 1921; at twentieth international exhibition of 
Carnegie Institute, Pittsburgh, 1921. 


I2I 


CATALOGUE OF JOHN SINGER SARGENT 


Honorable mention, Salon, 1879. The pose is unusual, though obviously 
characteristic of the sitter. Already one notes the young painter’s purpose 
to depart from conventional arrangement. The French painter, seated, 
bends his body towards the left, with his left hand placed on his knee, and 
holding in his right hand a walking stick, the elbow resting on his leg. His 
costume is different from that ordinarily worn by the masculine sitter, and 
marks him as an artist. The soft, loose collar, the flowing tie, the ruffled 
wristbands, and the style of the coat all denote that we have before us not 
only an artist but an artist who thinks well of himself and is determined 
to dress the part. 
A portrait something too exclusively Gallic in its mannerisms, but a work 
at the same time so full of dexterity, dash and character, as to be fairly 
astonishing in a lad of barely twenty-two.—Marion H. Dixon, 
It was hailed as a masterpiece of cleverness, and so it was, but alongside of 
the ‘‘Girl with a Rose” that followed, it seemed labored and academic, as 
if he had been hampered by his master’s presence. It is the only one of his 
works that looks as if it might have been done bit by bit and worked over. 
Samuel Isham. 


DANS LES OLIVIERS A CAPRI 

Exhibited at Paris Salon of 1879; at Copley Gallery, Boston, 1917. 
Landscape with a single figure. The girl is standing a little to the right of 
the foreground, leaning back against the long gnarled stem of an old tree. 
Her back is turned towards the spectator, but she turns her head so that her 
profile is visible. A rude stone wall and an olive grove in the background. 


SKETCH OF A NEAPOLITAN BOY 


Exhibited at Sargent loan exhibition, Copley Hall, Boston, 1899. 


NEAPOLITAN CHILDREN BATHING 


Painted in 1879, but it does not appear to have been shown at the Salon of 
that year. 


LUXEMBOURG GARDENS AT TWILIGHT 


Minneapolis Institute of Art 


Exhibited at fifteenth international exhibition, Carnegie Institute, Pitts- 
burgh, 1911, under title of “Garden of Versailles”; at thirteenth exhibi- 
tion of paintings by American artists, Albright Art Gallery, Buffalo, 1919. 


122 


OIL PAINTINGS, STUDIES AND SKETCHES 


It represents a corner of the sunken gardens of the Luxembourg at dusk. 
At the right is a fountain pool, in which some children are sailing toy boats. 
At the center and left are terraces banked with flowers. The top is outlined 
by a stone balustrade and exquisite bits of sculpture and tall vases on ped- 
estals. In the background are lofty trees silhouetted against a gray twilight 
sky, where the moon is just rising. In the foreground is a level promenade 
where people are seen walking. A rich mellow tone glows over the whole 
composition. 

This early work is inscribed: ““I'o my friend McKim,” and it belonged 
formerly to the eminent American architect, Charles F. McKim. A sim- 
ilar canvas, small in size, is in the John G. Johnson collection, Philadelphia. 
Illustrated in Pittsburgh catalogue of 1911 and in Academy Notes, 
Buffalo, Vol. xiv, No. 3, July-September, 1919. 


> 


IN THE LUXEMBOURG GARDENS 
John G. Johnson collection, Philadelphia 


Exhibited at Corcoran Gallery, Washington, 1910-1911; at fifteenth 
international exhibition, Carnegie Institute, Pittsburgh, 1911. 

This is a replica of the picture owned by the Minneapolis Institute of Art. 
The scene represents a broad stretch of gravel walk, backed by the wall 
and balustrade of a terrace, on the right of which a flight of steps descends 
to where a portion of the basin of a fountain appears. On its waters is the 
reflection of a yellow harvest moon that hangs above some distant trees in 
the pale lavender sky. Prominent among the figures near the basin is a man 
in black who stands reading a newspaper. Over on the left, in the fore- 
ground, a lady and gentleman are promenading, her arm linked in his, the 
red and pale violet fan that she holds in her hand showing against his 
black suit. He carries his straw hat down beside his right leg. The lady’s 
hat, also of straw, is confined by a veil, tied under the chin. She wears a 
pinkish-mauve gown, the skirt of which is gathered up into a bunch of 
folds by her left hand. Beyond this couple, to the left, a man is sitting on 
a bench beneath the terrace, near a bed of crimson and pink flowers. Other 
flowers, including hollyhocks, enliven the back of the scene. Signed and 
dated at the right, “John S. Sargent, Paris, 1879.” 


ROBERT DECIVRIEUX AND HIS PET DOG Boston Art Museum 
Painted in Paris in 1879. A small-scale, full-length portrait of a chubby 


£22 


CATALOGUE OF JOHN SINGER SARGENT 


little boy, who stands on a rug, in front of a curtain, in a studio, holding 
his pet dog under his right arm. He wears a black velvet suit, patent-leather 
pumps, a red necktie, and red socks, the color scheme of his costume being 
a handsome combination of black, red and white. ‘The head is finely drawn 
in a careful and deliberate manner, but the dog is brushed in with a freer 
and looser style of brushwork. 


FUMEE D’AMBRE-GRIS 


Exhibited at Paris Salon of 1880. 

This picture was the fruit of an excursion to the North African coast at 
the time of the painter’s first visit to Spain. It represents a young Oriental 
woman in a pearl-colored dress, standing on a rug, under a Moorish arch, 
with her hands raised to her head, and her sleeves falling in straight folds 
and casting a shadow over her face. 

The charming, dusky, white-robed person who, in the Tangerine subject 
exhibited at the Salon of 1880 . . . stands on a rug, under a great white 
Moorish arch, and from out of the shadows of the large drapery, raised 
pentwise by her hands, which covers her head, looks down, with painted 
eyes and brows showing above a bandaged mouth, at the fumes of a beau- 
tiful censer or chafing-dish placed on the carpet. . . . In her muffled 
contemplation and her pearl-colored robes, under her plastered arcade, 
which shines in the Eastern light, she transports and torments us. The 
picture is exquisite, a radiant effect of white upon white, of similar but dis- 
criminated tones.—Henry James: “Picture and Text,” Harper & Brothers. 
Canvas: 5434 x 2634 inches. 


SPANISH BEGGAR GIRL Paul Schulze collection 


Full-length figure of a young girl in white, standing in front of a light 
gray stucco wall. The costume is quite unusual and distinctly picturesque. 
The head and shoulders are hooded by a full white scarf. Over the white 
skirt is draped a long black sash which, encircling the waist, falls down 
over the front of the skirt, and is knotted together below the waist, the ends 
coming almost to the ground. Her left hand is extended, open, in front of 
her hip, in the gesture of solicitation of alms. The blond head, which is 
tilted a little to one side, wears an expression of mute, pathetic appeal. 


MRS. CHARLES GIFFORD DYER Art Institute of Chicago 


Exhibited at Grand Central Galleries, New York, 1924. | 
Three-quarters length; small scale. The sitter is a slender woman in black, 


124 





GEORGE HENSCHEL, ESQ. 
Collection of Mr. Henschel, London 


Reproduced from the photogravure by courtesy of William Heinemann, Ltd., London 





OIL PAINTINGS, STUDIES AND SKETCHES 


relieved against a rich reddish-brown background. Her hands lie clasped 
loosely in her lap; her long pale face wears a serious if not melancholy 
expression which is interestingly and closely characterized. A rose at left 
of foreground provides the only accent of warm color. This work is 
noticeable for its distinguished tone. Mrs. Dyer was the wife of a well- 
known American landscape painter, a native of Chicago, who lived in 
Europe some forty years. The Dyers were friends of Sargent and other 
members of the American colony in Italy. An inscription in the painter’s 
own handwriting runs as follows: “To my friend Mrs. Dyer. John S. 
Sargent, Venice, 1880.” 

Canvas: 24% x17 inches. Given to the Art Institute by the Friends of 
American Art, 1916. Formerly in the collection of Mr. Martin A, 
Ryerson. Reproduced in the Bulletin of the Art Institute, February, 1916, 


polal. 


MME. E. PAILLERON 


Exhibited at Paris Salon of 1880. 

The lady is represented standing in a park. The landscape setting is of a 
beautiful tone, light and fresh. The gown of a superb black material. The 
head, and especially the hair, are of a less satisfying quality. 

Wife of the French poet and dramatist, Edouard Jules Henri Pailleron, 
and the daughter of M. Buloz, manager of the Revue des Deux Mondes. 


SPANISH COURTYARD Louts B. McCagg collection 


Exhibited at National Academy of Design, New York, 1898; at Pennsyl- 
vania Academy, 1899; at Sargent loan exhibition, Boston, 1899; at 
Panama-Pacific Exposition, San Francisco, 1915. 

A handsome composition in grays, with fine accents of black and white. 
The paved courtyard, with plaster walls, an arcade at the left, a big sculp- 
tured wood cross at the right, and at the back the timbered supports of a 
balcony, forms the setting for some eight or nine figures of women and 
children, who are scattered about in a casual way that seems wholly fortui- 
tous but nevertheless lends itself to a design of much pictorial excellence. 
The sitting figure of a young mother holding a child in her arms and 
looking down into its face, in the foreground, is highly interesting, the 
attitude and movement being depicted with notable felicity. Just beyond 
this group are two standing figures of women, rather sketchy, but amaz- 


125 


CATALOGUE OF JOHN SINGER SARGENT 


ingly lifelike. At the left, far back, near an open door, a group of women 
sewing and gossipping; and at the right a dark-haired young woman, whose 
head, shoulders and arms alone are visible above a railing protecting a 
stairway well, is evidently starting to go down the unseen flight of steps. 


LES CHENES 


This landscape represents a scene in the grounds of the Chateau des Chénes, 
the home of M. and Mme. Pierre Gautreau, at Paramé, Ille et Vilaine, 
Brittany. It shows a little brook meandering through the foreground, and 
beyond it a grove of slim young trees on a slope, with a glimpse of the sky. 
Canvas: 2114 x 255% inches. Signed at lower left, and dated 1880 at lower 
right. Formerly in the collection of Miss Grace Ellison, of Paris. 


JAMES LAWRENCE, ESQ. 
Exhibited at loan exhibition of portraits, Copley Hall, Boston, 1896. 


MRS. JAMES LAWRENCE 
Exhibited at loan exhibition of portraits, Copley Hall, Boston, 1896. 


MR. BURCKHARDT 


Exhibited at Paris Salon of 1881; at loan exhibition of portraits, National 
Academy of Design, New York, 1898; at Sargent loan exhibition, Copley 
Hall, Boston, 1899. 


The father of the “Lady with a Rose,” Miss Burckhardt. Painted in 1880. 


THE ALHAMBRA 


Exhibited at Sargent loan exhibition, Copley Hall, Boston, 1899. 
Sketch. 


THE COURT OF "THE LIONS 
Exhibited at Sargent loan exhibition, Copley Hall, Boston, 1899.. 
Sketch, made in Granada, in 1880. 


MME. PAILLERON’S CHILDREN 


Exhibited at Paris Salon of 1881 under the title of ‘‘Portraits de M. E. P. 
et de Mlle. L. P.”’; at the exhibition of portraits and playthings of children 


126 


OIL PAINTINGS, STUDIES AND SKETCHES 


at Chateau Bagatelle, Paris, 1910, under the title of “Les Enfants 
Pailleron.” 


Note the picture of a brother and sister by Sargent, who has the dexterity, 
brilliancy, and somewhat ostentatious facility of his master, Carolus 
Duran, and with analogous properties of color. . . . The portrait of the 
children of M. P. gives me the impression of a man who, in spite of 
obvious gifts, is running the risk of entering upon a path at the end of which 
he will meet M. Dubufe.—J. Buisson in the Gazette des Beaux-Arts. 


The children of Edouard Pailleron, celebrated poet and dramatist, best 
known as the author of ‘‘Le Monde ot |’on s’amuse” and “Le Monde ot 


lon s’ennuie.” S Cia oe 
MME, R.s, (MW Remon ) 
Exhibited at Paris Salon of 1881. 


This canvas depicts a young lady in white, at the piano, with pleasing 
accessories of flowers and Delft ware. The picture was warmly com- 
mended by the critic of Le Temps, who spoke of its creamy-gray tones, the 
freshness of the flowers, and the lively blue notes of the Delft porcelain. 
“Les audaces de M. Sargent nous plaisent beaucoup,’ wrote this critic, 
“et nous espérons qwelles seront bientét comprises.” 

Second-class medal, Salon, 1881. 


MISS BURCKHARDT (“LADY WITH A ROSE”) 
Collection of Mrs. Harold F. Hadden 


Exhibited at Paris Salon in 1881 under the erroneous title of “Mlle. L. P.”’; 
at Royal Academy, London, 1882, under the title of “‘A Portrait’; at 
Boston Art Museum, 1883, as “Portrait of a Lady”; at Grand Central 
Galleries, New York, 1924, as ““The Lady with the Rose—My Sister.” 
Full-length. The young lady, dressed in black satin, stands with her right 
hand bent back resting on her waist, while the other hand, with the arm 
extended, offers to view a single rose. The dress, stretched at the hips over 
a sort of hoop, and ornamented in front, where it opens on a velvet 
petticoat, with large satin bows, has an old-fashioned air. The hair is 
arranged in two or three large curls fastened at one side over the temple with 
a comb. In the background is a vague faded silk curtain. 


More than the majority of Sargent’s portraits, this painting is permeated by 
a spiritual quality, and its sheer loveliness wins it an affectionate place in the 
hearts as well as the esteem of the observers.—Leila Mechlin. 


127, 


CATALOGUE OF JOHN SINGER SARGENT 


The childish contour of the face, the tender forehead bulging a little 
under soft waves of hair, the deep corners of the mouth, and the serious yet 
alert gaze are not only exquisite in themselves, they are exquisitely seen. 
Even the flip of the bent hand resting on the hip, a convention of uncon- 
ventionality, has its personal expressiveness. Probably the artist never has 
painted a more purely personal portrait or one that gives more successfully 
the illusion of mental, physical and spiritual life-——New York Times. 


Painted when he was but four-and-twenty years of age, the picture by 
which Mr. Sargent was represented at the Salon of 1881 is a performance 
which may well have made any critic of imagination rather anxious about 
his future. . . . It offers the slightly uncanny spectacle of a talent which 
on the very threshold of its career has nothing more to learn. It is not 
simply precocity in the guise of maturity . . . it is the freshness of youth 
combined with the artistic experience, really felt and assimilated, of gen- 
erations. My admiration for this deeply distinguished work is such that I 
am perhaps in danger of overstating its merits; but it is worth taking into 
account that to-day, after several years’ acquaintance with them, these 
merits seem to me more and more to justify enthusiasm. The picture has 
this sign of productions of the first order, that its style would clearly save 
it if everything else should change—our measure of its value of resem- 
blance, its expression of character, the fashion of dress, the particular 
associations it evokes. . . . The artist has constructed a picture which it 
is impossible to forget, of which the most striking characteristic is its 
simplicity, and yet which overflows with perfection. Painted with extraordi- 
nary breadth and freedom, so that surface and texture are interpreted 
by the lightest hand, it glows with life, character and distinction, and 
strikes us as the most complete — with one exception, perhaps—of the 
author’s productions. — Henry James: “Picture and Text,’ Harper & 
Brothers. 


EL JALEO Fenway Court, Boston 


Exhibited at Paris Salon of 1882; at St. Botolph Club, Boston, 1888- 
1889; at Boston Art Museum, 1898, 1899, 1900, and 1912. Formerly in 
the collection of Hon. T. Jefferson Coolidge. 


This composition depicts a woman in the middle of a dimly lighted room, 
in a voluminous white silk dress and black mantilla, with her body thrown 
back in a slanting attitude, representing a figure of the Spanish dance. She 


128 





Courtesy Grand Central Art Galleries, New York 


MRS. DAVIS AND HER SON 
[ Mother and Child] 


Collection of Mr. Livingston Davis, Boston 





OIL PAINTINGS, STUDIES AND SKETCHES 


is dancing to the accompaniment of her own castanets and that of a row of 
joyous white-garbed women and black-hatted musicians who sit in straw 
chairs against the grimy whitewashed wall in the background, and thrum 
upon guitar and tambourine, or lift their castanets into the air. 

Reveals the most remarkable qualities of observation and invention. Mr. 
Sargent also adds to these merits the great merit of not subordinating the 
impression received to the use of borrowed methods. 


Antonin Proust in Gazette des Beaux-Arts. 


Things which we should call admirably and ingeniously arranged were it 
not for the feeling that they happened so, that the artist seized upon a for- 
tuitous natural composition and recorded it either from memory or 
directly from the thing —Kenyon Cox. 

There is, as it were, the knack of Spain in his “El Jaleo,” something 
neither Italian nor Oriental, but proper to the spirit of the populace of this 
one peninsula, a somewhat deep-toned gaiety, a laugh in grave notes, and 
a kind of defiance, at least in the women.—Alice Meynell. 

It is a piece of naturalistic painting; every ingredient of visible passion, 
grace, and Spanish glamour which belongs to the famous dance . . . is 
reflected as in a mirror; but there is no tincture of the photograph there. A 
beautiful work of art, beautiful in its rich darks, its luminous yet restrained 
yellows, its grasping of some eight or ten figures in a design which seems 
simplicity itself—until you take the trouble to analyze the balance of its 
movement and the subtle codrdination of its values.—Royal Cortissoz. 
Reproduced in the Gazette des Beaux-Arts, June, 1882. 


SPANISH DANCE 
A square canvas, evidently one of the studies made in Spain, in 1880, at 
the same time that “E] Jaleo” was painted. This is a vivid and spirited im- 
pression of a picturesque nocturnal scene, with several couples in the fore- 
ground going through the extravagant posturing of the national dance. In 
the background is a crowd of spectators and a few musicians with guitars 
and tambourines. 


MRS. VALLE AUSTEN 
Exhibited at Paris Salon, 1882; at National Academy of Design, New 
York, 1882; at Corcoran Gallery, Washington, 1916-1917; at City Art 
Museum, St. Louis, 1917. 


129 


CATALOGUE OF JOHN SINGER SARGENT 


Three-quarters length; standing; full front; with slender hands loosely 
clasped together. The figure, in white satin, is relieved against a gray wall. 
A flowing black scarf falls from the throat over a bouquet of red roses. 
The face is very serious in its expression. The drawing of the head and 
hands is notably strong. 

Signed and dated Paris, 1882. 


This singularly charming painting . . . shows Mr. Sargent’s virtuosity 
in all its intensity, but subordinated to the theme. 

American Magazine of Art. 
It is a sympathetic portrait, in which Mr. Sargent has presented to us a 
subtle and rare beauty, poise, reserve. The satin is reminiscent of Terborch. 
The hands are perhaps the most remarkable part of the painting, sensitive, 
delicate, quietly folded together. 


Bulletin of the City Art Museum, St. Louis. 


THE BOIT CHILDREN Boston Art Museum 


Painted in 1882. Given to the Boston Art Museum in 1919 by the daugh- 
ters of Edward Darley Boit in memory of their father. 


Canvas: 8714 x 87% inches. 


Exhibited at Paris Salon of 1883 under the title of ‘Portraits d’Enfants”’; 
at St. Botolph Club, Boston, 1888-1889; at Paris Exposition, 1900; and 
at Boston Art Muesum many times prior to 1919. 

This large square picture is one of Sargent’s most important and most 
beautiful works of the early period. In the foreground, the youngest of the 
four little girls is sitting on a gray-blue rug, on the floor of the studio, 
holding her doll in her lap. At the left, the next youngest of the sisters 
stands, facing full front, with her hands behind her back, frankly posing 
for her likeness, but without undue self-consciousness. The two eldest 
children stand farther back in the room, one of them leaning against a 
huge blue-and-white Chinese vase considerably taller than herself. These 
two figures, half in shadow, are projected against the most deeply shadowed 
portion of the interior. The rendering of the white frocks and aprons is a 
triumph of crisp workmanship, and the same is true of the rugs, the vase, 
the red screen, etc. The arrangement of the group is unconventional, but 
exceedingly felicitous. It was a fortunate circumstance that the work was 
done for a fellow artist and an intimate friend, since in‘all probability it 
would have been difficult if not impossible to persuade the usual client to 


130 


OIL PAINTINGS, STUDIES AND SKETCHES 


permit so much freedom in the design. Here we have not merely a portrait 
group but a picture; the two things are combined with remarkable success. 
Light and shade, composition, color, drawing, textures, all are conceived 
from the point of view of a highly original pictorial effect, and, while the 
portrait element is not by any means negligible, it is, as it were, subordi- 
nated to the beautiful pictorial impression. Never has Sargent been more 
spontaneous than in this delightful canvas, which has in a peculiar degree 
all the piquancy of his personal touch and style. 

The naturalness of the composition, the loveliness of the complete effect, 
the light, free security of the execution, the sense it gives us as of assimi- 
lated secrets and of instinct and knowledge playing together —all this 
makes the picture as astonishing a work on the part of a young man of 
twenty-six as the portrait of 1881 was astonishing on the part of a young 
man of twenty-four.— Henry James: “Picture and Text,” Harper & 
Brothers. 

One of the most consummately skilful of Mr. Sargent’s performances, 
although in it the imitation of his favorite model, Velasquez, is patent and 
avowed.—Claude Phillips. 

The exact values of the tones, the relations of the lights to the darks, the 
atmospheric effect over all, are precisely and irreproachably right. 


John C. Van Dyke. 


MRS. ADRIAN ISELIN 
Exhibited at Grand Central Galleries, New York, 1924. 
Nearly full-length; standing; the right hand rests lightly on the corner 
of an inlaid table with ormolu mounts. Black satin dress with passementerie 
trimmings. 
A portrait which claims and holds attention as few portraits of to-day do, 
a picture profoundly personal, full of character, vital in the extreme, a 
beautiful work.—Leila Mechlin. 
She stands proudly erect; only the clutch of telltale fingers on the ormolu 
mount of a near-by table betrays that this erectness demands an effort of 
will. Her formal black satin gown with its glitter of passementerie and 
long-looped watch-chain have the unostentatious elegance of a bygone day, 
while the strength and reserve of the face under its smooth parting of gray 
hair bespeak self-discipline that, too, is a little out of fashion. 


Margaret Breuning in New York Evening Post. 
131 


CATALOGUE OF JOHN SINGER SARGENT 


VENETIAN INTERIOR Carnegie Institute, Pittsburgh 
Exhibited at Grand Central Galleries, New York, 1924. 
One of the painter’s most fascinating interiors. In a large bare room are 
seven figures. The color scheme is restricted to a gamut of fine blacks, 
whites, grays and browns. [wo girls are standing near the foreground, and 
one is seated at the left. At the farther end of the room is an open door, 
and through this we see the figure of another girl, on a balcony or porch, 
in full light. Just inside the door, two women are sitting, at the left, with 
a child between them. 


THE SULPHUR MATCH (CIGARETTE) 

Collection of Mr. Louis Curtis 
Exhibited at loan exhibition, Copley Gallery, Boston, 1917; at Grand 
Central Galleries, New York, 1924. 
‘Two small figures, that of a swarthy man lighting his cigarette, and that 
of a woman sitting in a chair which is tipped back against the wall. She 
turns her head a little towards her companion, with an inscrutable expres- 
sion, possibly half coquettish; while he momentarily ignores her, concen- 
trating all his attention upon the important operation of lighting his fag. 
Signed and dated Venice, 1882. 


VENISE PAR TEMPS GRIS Collection of Sir Philip Sassoon 


This composition comes as close to being a panoramic view as anything by 
Sargent. It is a view from the Riva degli Schiavoni, looking westward, 
towards the Ducal Palace, the Campanile, and Santa Maria della Salute. 
In the right foreground is the quai, dotted here and there with small figures 
of pedestrians. At the left, the Lagoon, with many fishing boats moored 
alongside the mole. ‘The work is brushed in, in a sketchy way, but with a 
fine gray tonality, and much atmospheric verisimilitude. In general effect it 
is not unlike a Whistler. It would be interesting to compare it with a Can- 
aletto or a Guardi, a Ziem or a Bunce, and, different as it is from each and 
all of these painters’ conceptions of Venice, it would hold its own in any 
company. 


SELF-PORTRAIT Kepplestone collection 


THORNTON K. LOTHROP, ESQ. 


Exhibited at St. Botolph Club, Boston, 1888-1889; at Sargent loan exhi- 
bition, Copley Hall, Boston, 1899; at Boston Art Museum, 1916. 
Painted in 1882. 


132 


OIL PAINTINGS, STUDIES AND SKETCHES 


PORTRAIT OF A CHILD Mrs. Eleanor Jay Chapman collection 
Exhibited at fourth annual exhibition of contemporary American art, 


Boston Art Museum, 1883. 


PORTRAIT OF A YOUNG GIRL Mrs. Charles J. White collection 
Exhibited at Sargent loan exhibition, Copley Hall, Boston, 1899; at 
Boston Art Museum, 1916. 

Painted 1883-1884. A contemporary notice called attention to the very 
simple and delicate piece of modeling in the head. 


DOCTOR POZZI 
This portrait, painted about 1883, in Paris, does not appear to have been 
exhibited at the Salon. Doctor Pozzi was a distinguished surgeon. Sargent 
painted him wearing a brilliant red dressing gown. According to Henry 
James, the sitter was a gallant pictorial type and the picture was splendid. 
The bearing of the eminent physician was “as noble as that of a figure by 
Van Dyck.” 


WILLIAM THORNE, ESQ. 
Exhibited at eleventh international exhibition, Carnegie Institute, Pitts- 
burgh, 1907; at Corcoran Gallery, Washington, 1907. 
Sketch portrait. 
Mr. Thorne is an American portrait painter and a National Academician, 
with a studio in New York. 


MADAME GAUTREAU Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York 
Exhibited at Paris Salon of 1884; at Carfax Gallery, London, 1909; at 
Panama-Pacific Exposition, San Francisco, 1915. 

Full-length portrait of a famous Parisian beauty—a contestable beauty, 
according to contemporary records; the lady stands upright beside a table 
on which her right arm rests, with her body almost fronting the spectator 
and her face in complete profile. She wears an entirely sleeveless dress of 
black satin, against which her admirable left arm detaches itself; the line 
of her harmonious profile has a sharpness which Mr. Sargent does not 
always seek, and the crescent of Diana, an ornament in diamonds, rests on 
her singular head. It is said that the picture failed to please her, and her 
numerous friends spent much indignation upon the artist. A certain section 


133 


CATALOGUE OF JOHN SINGER SARGENT 


of fashionable Paris took up the case, and it led to much contention in salon 
and atelier. 

Purely French, with a French character lying out of the view of the cari- 
caturist, is the fine clear portrait of Madame Gautreau, the firm and solid 
profile, with decision, not weakness, in its receding forehead and small 
chin.—Alice Meynell. 

There is the masterful accent of the man born to paint portraits, born to 
draw from each of his sitters the one unforgettable and vital impression 
which is waiting for the artist—Royal Cortissoz. 

Mr. L. de Fourcaud devoted a generous amount of space to his discussion 
of this important work in an article on the Salon in the Gazette des Beaux- 
Arts, June, 1884. He avowed that he was a convinced admirer of the 
picture, in which he discerned all sorts of curious intentions and strange 
refinements. He spoke of the peculiarities of the type of women known as 
“professional beauties,” who, he said, became idols rather than women. 
Sargent had in this work depicted the idol, and it should be regarded in that 
light. The purity of the lines of his model must havestruck him at once, and 
he determined to make of the portrait something like a large drawing in 
cameo style. . . . “Of course, I do not affirm that the painter indulged 
himself in profound speculations regarding the psychology of his model; 
it may very well be that he was actuated solely by plastic preoccupations; 
but I do affirm that the design was his chief objective in this portrait .. . 
and that as a result of his perseverance in observing and fixing the manner 
of being of the idol we have a work not only of refinement but also of 
great carrying power.” 

Painted at M. and Mme. Pierre Gautreau’s country house, Les Chénes, at 
Paramé, Ille et Vilaine, near St. Malo, on the coast of Brittany. 

Canvas: 82144x 43% inches. Reproduced in “The Work of John S. 
Sargent, R.A.,” in Scribner’s Magazine for November, 1903, and in the 
Bulletin of the Metropolitan Museum of Art for May, 1915. 


MRS. KATE A. MOORE Luxembourg Museum, Paris 


Exhibited at one hundred and sixteenth exhibition Pennsylvania Academy, 
1921; at Knoedler Galleries, New York, 1918. 

Full-length; seated, in a shadowy interior, with many still-life accessories 
in sight—furniture, china, flowers, bric-a-brac, etc., all brushed in with the 
painter’s customary virtuosity. The pose of the sitter is not wholly repose- 
ful; and her sidelong glance does not explain itself. 


134 


OIL PAINTINGS, STUDIES AND SKETCHES 


Striking characterization; beautiful contours; exquisite rendering of ma- 
terials; qualities to which no reproduction could do justice. 


American Magazine of Art 


MRS. HENRY WHITE 


Née Margaret Stuyvesant Rutherford; wife of the former American 
Ambassador to Italy and to France. Painted in 1884. She is shown at full 
length, standing, in white satin gown with train; a fan held in the right 
hand; in the background is a gray curtain and a chaise longue with ormolu 
mounts and a red cushion. 


Exhibited at Royal Academy, London, 1884; at Paris Universal Exposi- 
tion, 1900; at sixth exhibition of contemporary American paintings, 
Corcoran Gallery, Washington, 1916-1917; at Grand Central Galleries, 
New York, 1924. 

The pose has all the é/an and freshness of youth, and the carriage of the 
graceful head is charming. The drawing and painting are, it need hardly be 
said, clever in the extreme.—The Art Journal. 

‘The marvelous painting of Mrs. Henry White . . . thrills you across the 
long room. It is one of the splendid portraits of all time, this presentment 
of an aristocratic woman, dignified, aloof, beautiful, who draws you 
unwaveringly to her without the flick of an eyelash or the least unbending 
of the calm formality of her pose. 


Margaret Breuning in New York Evening Post. 


THE DEADLY PARALLEL 


One of the finest and most discerning 
portraits that Mr. Sargent has painted, 
full not only of technical merit and 
artistic worth, but personality and 
spiritual significance. “he composi- 
tion is charmingly rendered, the tex- 
ture inimitable, the pose and expres- 
sion peculiarly happy, and the inter- 
pretation of character is so subtle yet 
so sympathetic that none can fail to 
feel its significance. 

American Magazine of Art. 


Mr. J. S. Sargent has been the victim 
of a reputation too easily acquired. 
He does his powers injustice by neg- 
lecting taste in every element of his 
pictures except that tonality in which 
he excels. His Mrs. H. White, a life- 
size, whole-length figure in a fawn- 
colored dress, is hard; the painting is 
almost metallic; the carnations are 
raw; there is no taste in the expres- 
sion, air or modeling; but the work 
is able enough to deserve recasting. 


The Athenaeum. 


135 


CATALOGUE OF JOHN SINGER SARGENT 


MRS. HENRY WHITE 
Sketch. 


Exhibited at Corcoran Gallery, Washington, 1916-1917; at Grand Cen- 
tral Galleries, New York, 1924. 


Head and shoulders only. This is the preliminary study of the sitter whose 
full-length in white was painted at the same period. 

It has the spontaneity of an improvisation in its broad bravura, but it is as 
substantial an evocation as the more deeply pondered canvas. ‘The smaller 
canvas registers perhaps the high-water mark of Mr. Sargent’s prowess as 
a brushman pure and simple. We have never seen anything of his to beat it 
in flowing force, in confident, easy mastery.—Royal Cortissoz. 


POINTY Mrs. H. F. Hadden collection 
Exhibited at Grand Central Galleries, New York, 1924. 
A portrait sketch of a dog, painted in Paris, 1884. 


MRS. T. W. LEGH 
Exhibited at Grosvenor Gallery, London, 1884. 
Vivacious and charming; the flesh tones are clear and pure. 
The Art Journal 


“MADAME ERRAZURIS 


Half-length; seated; full front; this remarkably spirited realization of a 
smiling and comely young woman embodies the joy of living with the most 
engaging felicity and naturalness. She looks as if she were overflowing 
with good nature and high spirits, and not only that, but she has the unmis- 
takable aspect of an alert intelligence. The face certainly illustrates the 
implication of the phrase ‘“‘a speaking likeness,” since its suggestion of 
interesting conversational powers is unmistakable. Madame Errazuris was 
an Austrian lady, and the portrait was painted in Paris, in 1884. 


THE MISSES VICKERS 


Exhibited at Paris Salon of 1885; at Royal Academy, 1886; at Paris 
Universal Exposition of 1900; at exhibition of Twenty Years of British 
Art, Whitechapel Art Gallery, London, 1910. 


These three young ladies, sisters, sitting in an irregular row, in a dining 
room much foreshortened, aroused in London a chorus of murmurs, and, 


136 





CARMENCITA 


Luxembourg Museum, Paris 


Reproduced from the photogravure by courtesy of William Heinemann, Ltd., London 





OIL PAINTINGS, STUDIES AND SKETCHES 


according to Henry James, had the further privilege of drawing forth 
some prodigies of purblind criticism. Of the three young girls, two are 
seated on a sofa at the left. One of these is dressed in black; the other in 
white. The girl in black, with downcast eyes, is looking over the pages of a 
magazine which lies in her lap, as she turns the leaves; the girl in white, 
who apparently has been looking at the same magazine, for one of her hands 
still holds a corner of the open page, is now directing her gaze elsewhere. 
Her left arm is thrown across the back of the settee, encircling her sister. 
The third figure, a little farther back, seems to be the eldest of the trio. She 
is sitting in a low chair, at the right, the back of the chair towards the ob- 
server; she has thrown her left arm over the chair-back, and she turns side- 
ways in such a position as to bring her left side towards the artist, while her 
head is still more to the left, so that the face is almost full front. In the 
vaguely indicated background are a table with teacups, a chair, a screen, and 
a window at the right. 

It is in his usual bold, suggestive manner; not quite so dashing nor so 
pleasantly strong in color as his “Lady Playfair,” but with something more 
intimately expressive in the faces, and a more sincere and unaffected study 


of the type—R. A. M. Stevenson. 


“The Misses Vickers” . . . justifies itself through the sheer charm of the 
effect which the painter has secured from his lawless arrangement of forms. 
Royal Cortissoz. 


Mr. Sargent, always uneven, but always interesting, has grouped in a 
curiously cut-up frame three young girls, three foreigners; the painting of 
_ this group is so savory, seductive, and persuasive, that it makes us pardon 
him more than one juggler’s trick (tour de passe-passe). 

André Michel in Gazette des Beaux-Arts 


Take the portrait of ““The Misses Vickers,” or, rather, take the portrait of 
the particular Miss Vickers who sits detached from the interlaced couple in 
the center of the picture, and we shall see a young lady foreshortened in a 
manner in which probably no young lady (sitting for her portrait) was ever 
foreshortened before. But that she is actually in perspective as she is drawn, 
and, moreover, absolutely vital to the balance of the picture in the place 
and at the angle in which you find her, any expert can see at a glance. 
Marion Hepworth Dixon. 


It is the me plus ultra of French painting, or, rather, of the French method 
as learned by a clever foreigner, in which everything is sacrificed to tech- 


137 


CATALOGUE OF JOHN SINGER SARGENT 


nical considerations. . . . And yet, when it is all done, what good is it? 
. . . For—and this is the whole point of our criticism—no human being 
except a painter can take any pleasure in such work as this. People may ad- 
mire and wonder at its skill and audacity, and even be gratified by them, 
much in the same way as we are gratified when the Japanese juggler spins 
fifteen plates at the same time; but genuine, lasting pleasure can no man 
take in what is essentially shallow, pretentious, and untrue. 


Harry Quilter in The Spectator, May 1, 1886. 


MRS. VICKERS 
Exhibited at Paris Salon of 1885; at Royal Academy, 1886. 
Brushed in with a summary and confident mastery of style. The work is 
somewhat slatey in tone. 
Sargent fully maintains his high reputation. His portrait of the three sisters 
all on one canvas is very powerful. So also is his portrait of Mme. V., 
though in a less degree, perhaps.—J/lustrated London News. 
Mr. Sargent, like Mr. Whistler, is very skilful in his treatment of those 
parts of the picture which he does not wish to make important, which are 
to play only a decorative part, to guide the eye elsewhere, and to support or 
increase the effect of the rest —R. A. M. Stevenson. 


HOME FIELDS Detroit Institute of Arts 


A landscape motive of ordinary character in itself, but poetized by the late 
afternoon effect of light. The observer is looking away from the sun, 
towards an old barn at the right background, and along the line of a 
dilapidated fence in sharp perspective. These objects catch the last gleams 
of the setting sun. The beams that fall across the meadow at the left are 
contrasted with the shadows of the feathery young trees. Over this scene of 
approaching dusk the cool sky heralds the coming of an autumn night. 
This landscape study was painted at Broadway, Worcestershire, in 1885, 
and was given by the artist to his friend Frank Bramley, painter of the 
pathetic picture called ““A Hopeless Dawn,” in the Tate Gallery, London. 
‘The canvas is inscribed in the lower left-hand corner, “Io my friend 
Bramley,” and signed. 


MRS. BARNARD 


Exhibited at Anglo-American exhibition, Shepherd’s Bush, London, 1914. 
This portrait of the wife of Fred Barnard, the well-known illustrator, was 


138 


OIL PAINTINGS, STUDIES AND SKETCHES 


painted at Broadway, Worcestershire, in 1885, and is a superb early 
example. Mrs. Barnard was the mother of the two pretty little girls who 
posed for the figures in the “Carnation, Lily, Lily, Rose.” 


The nobility that he knew so well to gain by subtle management of space 
and mass.—FElisabeth Luther Cary. 


MRS. FRANCIS D. MILLET 


Exhibited at Sargent loan exhibition, Copley Hall, Boston, 1899. 

The wife of the American figure painter. She is depicted in a lilac costume. 
A delightful picture. It was painted at Broadway, Worcestershire, where 
the Millets were living at the time. 


LADY -PLAY FAIR 


Exhibited at Royal Academy, 1885; at St. Botolph Club, Boston, 1887; 
at Paris Salon of 1888; at Sargent loan exhibition, Copley Hall, Boston, 
1899. 

A striking example of the painter’s virtuosity. The color scheme is excep- 
tionally brilliant. Lady Playfair wears black lace over an orange-colored 
satin bodice and skirt. The comments of the London critics in 1885 were 
for the most part specimens of the “prodigies of purblind criticism” men- 
tioned by Henry James. The Athenaeum pronounced the air of the figure 
“almost vulgar in its demonstrativeness,” and added the following paradox: 
“Beauty, choiceness, and delicacy of form, modelling, local coloring, light 
and shade, and even the character of the subject, have one and all been 
sacrificed to the attainment of a Velasquez-like but very crude manner of 
coloring and painting.” 

The critic of the I/lustrated London News wrote: 

“Mr. John Sargent’s portrait of Lady Playfair, though clever, is conceived 
in the very worst spirit of contemporary French art. Its technical ability 
may be generally admitted, although the modelling of the arms is the 
reverse of graceful, but the failure of the attempt to portray a grande dame 
is painfully conspicuous.” 

The Saturday Review found the work “brilliant and dashing,” with its 
“truly Parisian qualities of chic and winning attractiveness.” 

The Art Journal critic declared it was “decidedly tapageur, and neither 
graceful nor dignified.” 


139 


CATALOGUE OF JOHN SINGER SARGENT 


CARNATION, LILY, LILY, ROSE Tate Gallery, London 


Exhibited at Royal Academy, 1887; at fifty-sixth exhibition Royal Glas- 
gow Institute of the Fine Arts, 1917. 


Chantrey Purchase, 1887. In a garden filled with red and white blossoms, 
two pretty little English girls in white frocks are busily engaged at twilight 
in preparing Chinese lanterns for a féte. The time is a summer evening; 
and the effect is that of a conflict of lights between the fading daylight and 
the illuminated lanterns. 


Signed. Canvas: 5 feet 71% inches by 4 feet 11 inches. 


The picture is Japanese in its sense of decoration, as if decoration and 
idyllic moments always went together.—T. Martin Wood. 


The children are exquisitely painted, and the flowers and whole lower half 
of the picture marvellously beautiful, but we could spare much detail from 
the top, that we might enjoy the rest unembarrassed by a profusion of white 
spots.—Saturday Review. 


This conflict of lights and colors is rather embarrassing to the eye at first, 
and harms the first general impression, but little by little the artist’s idea 
and conception, at once bold and feeling, reveal themselves and charm us. 
It is especially in the two delightful types of young girls that he manifests 
a tenderness which he has not often shown us. 

Sir Claude Phillips in Gazette des Beaux-Arts. 


The refined originality of this embroidery of light and shadow, the lights 
so brilliant, the shadows penetrated with mystery, the affectionate tender- 
ness with which the children and flowers are represented, the lovely imag- 
inativeness of the whole conception, bespoke qualities which have appeared 
only partially in the portraits, and are altogether of a rarer significance than 
their vivid actuality—Charles H. Caffin. 


. . . The introduction and painting of the children’s figures, the disposi- 
tion of the masses of flowers and leaves with which they are surrounded; 
the delicately bold coloring of the roses, carnations and lilies—in all of 
these respects is this picture an exquisite work of art. And even now we have 
left some chief merits untold, and must leave them undescribed. For how 
is it possible to describe in words that subtle rendering of brilliance and 
shadow, that united mystery and revelation which render this composition 
so admirable? —Harry Quilter. 


140 


BEATRICE 





Copyright, 1925, by Robert Walton Goelet 


MISS BEATRICE GOELET 
Collection of Mr. Robert Walton Goelet, New York 


OIL PAINTINGS, STUDIES AND SKETCHES 


Portraits of childhood and an exquisite study of twilight and lantern-light, 
with the fine violet tints that artificial light lends to evening air, and with 
white as lovely in its coolness as the white of Titian in its gold, are united 
in the garden picture, “Carnation, Lily, Lily, Rose.” It is strange that any 
one affects to make light of truth and to look elsewhere for decoration, 
when nature and truth can look so beautiful.—Alice Meynell. 


SKETCH FOR CARNATION, LILY, LILY, ROSE 
Painted in 1885. 
Exhibited at Sargent loan exhibition, Boston, 1899. 


BY THE RIVER Mrs. J. Montgomery Sears collection 


A young lady in a white skirt, pink waist, and straw hat with blue ribbon, 
is sitting on the bank of a river, under the trees, reading. Her bluish-green 
parasol stands furled by her side. The little stream at the left is seen in 
perspective flowing beneath the trees; and at a distance there are swans 
paddling about on its smooth surface. Beyond a verdant meadow at the 
right are the high plastered walls of a farmyard in the background. 
Painted at Broadway, Worcestershire, 1885. 


Pre CIGARETTE 
Brilliant study of a woman at a table on which large candelabra are won- 
derfully indicated. It was originally an upright, but the artist cut it down 
by taking a piece off the bottom of the canvas. Painted at Broadway, 
Worcestershire, in 1885. 


MRS. ARTHUR LAWRENCE ROTCH 
Mrs. Henry Parkman, Jr., collection 
Exhibited at Boston Art Museum, 1903 and 1916. 
The portrait of Mrs. Rotch is conceived quite as Copley might have con- 
ceived it—but he could never, in his palmiest days, have executed it with 
the superb breadth, ease and virtuosity which it displays in every feature 
and detail. Boston Transcript. 


ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON 
Mrs. Harry Payne Whitney collection 


Exhibited at New English Art Club, 1887; at Grand Central Galleries, 
New York, 1924. 


I4I 


CATALOGUE OF JOHN SINGER SARGENT 


An interior with two figures. The novelist, at the left, is walking up and 
down the room, and appears to be soliloquizing, or, perhaps, dictating. At 
the right, in shadow, seated, the figure of Mrs. Stevenson. An open door 
and stairway at background. The walls of the room are red. 

Painted at Bournemouth, in 1885. 

Interesting both for subject and treatment is the picture of Robert Louis 
Stevenson walking to and fro in a red-walled room, dictating a story to his 
wife. His long, lank form, the intense life that pulses in the feeble frame, 
and the characteristic gesture as he lifts one hand to his face while groping 
for the right word—all are ably made to contribute to the realization of the 
beloved author’s personality—W. H. D. in Boston Transcript. 


ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON 


Exhibited at St. Botolph Club, Boston, 1887; at Society of American 
Artists, New York, 1893; at Pennsylvania Academy, 1899; at Sargent 
loan exhibition, Copley Hall, Boston, 1899. 


Portrait study. Painted at Bournemouth, in 1885. Full-length; seated in a 
wicker armchair, with legs crossed, and the slim body listlessly sunk down 
in the chair. The right hand holding a cigarette, and the left hand resting 
on leg. ‘The hands are very characteristic in shape and position. Fur rug on 
the floor. Cabinet in background. 


Then there was a portrait of Robert Louis Stevenson, with the long legs, 
long fingers, long face, long hair, perhaps exaggerated a little, and cer- 
tainly giving the sitter a queer, uncanny look—Magazine of Art. 


MRS. MASON 
Exhibited at Grosvenor Gallery, London, 1885. 


Full-length. The costume is of black material, with much transparent 
muslin. 


Very clever, but hard and stiff.—I/lustrated London News. 
Mr. Sargent’s portrait of Mrs. Mason is notable for distinction and style. 


Saturday Review. 


MRS. WILTON PHIPPS AND WINSTON = Henry Phipps collection 


Exhibited at London, 1886; at Grand Central Galleries, New York, 1924. 
Mrs. Phipps is the grandmother of the infant she is holding in her lap. She 


142 


OIL PAINTINGS, STUDIES AND SKETCHES 


wears a blue-gray dress, and the child is in white, with a baby cap of bluish- 
white. The background is a conventionalized landscape. Mrs. Phipps’s 
gray hair is relieved against a dark mass of foliage. The treatment of the 
drapery is perhaps a little fussy, a rare defect in Sargent’s work. 


Somehow, Sargent does not seem to have comprehended in this work 
infancy, and here one feels a little overstraining of the style of the 
English eighteenth century.—Leila Mechlin. 


Very charming in aspect and distinguished in its color scheme of black and 
white.—William A. Coffin. 


Engraved on wood by Timothy Cole for the Century Magazine, 1912. 


MRS. WILTON PHIPPS Mrs. Butler Duncan collection 
Exhibited at Sargent loan exhibition, Copley Hall, Boston, 1899. 


MRS. HARRISON 
Exhibited at Royal Academy, 1886. 


No doubt there is a certain chic about his portraits, and at a distance the 
general effect is not unpleasing, but his coloring and composition are both 
eccentric.—Art Journal. 


An exercise in white, red and gray; is,so far as this goes, excellent, although 
it is decidedly unpleasant as a household companion, and, for the owner’s 
sake, we hope unjust to the lady.— The Athenaeum. 


GEORGE R. FEARING 
Exhibited at the Copley Gallery, Boston, 1917. 


PORTRAIT OF A LADY 
Exhibited at New.English Art Club, 1886. 


Should be seen from a distance; the painting is of a most dashing sort, and 
the wonderful rendering of the dress and background cannot fail to evoke 
admiration.— Art Journal. 


SPREE E SCENE IN VENICE Collection of Mrs. Stanford White 


Exhibited at Society of American Artists, New York, 1893; at Sargent 
loan exhibition, Copley Hall, Boston, 1899; at the Copley Gallery, Boston, 
1916; at Grand Central Galleries, New York, 1924. 


143 


CATALOGUE OF JOHN SINGER SARGENT 


A somber street scene with several figures. The vista of a narrow street. In 
the foreground a young woman, slender and of a fine bearing, is walking. 
She has just passed two men who are standing at the right, near the wall of 
one of the buildings. They are wearing cloaks, and are staring at the 
woman. 

As a painting pure and simple it is a marvel. The arrangement—that is 
hardly the word for it, for it seems an inevitable design, one of those things 
that could not have happened otherwise—is novel and pictorially all that it 
could or should be. The placing of the three main figures is notably felici- 
tous.—W. H. D. in Boston Transcript. 

There is a sketch by Sargent of a slatternly red-headed girl with a black 
shawl over her head coming over the stones of a shabby little street that zs 
Venice as none of the other representations are. The canals may be filled 
up, St. Mark’s may crumble as the Campanile has done; but as long as the 
race and the climate remain, so long will remain the clear, colorless 
morbidezza of the face, the limp clinging skirts with all the stiffness taken 
out by the moist sea air, and the gentle lassitude of the loafers leaning 
against the wall draped in their dark cloaks. ‘The curious thing is that while 
the picture is in grays and blacks, without a single bright touch, it is not 
only more true but infinitely more beautiful in color than the customary 
blaze of orange and red; and while there is not a trace of old carving or 
Gothic architecture, yet it somehow gives the grace and mystery of 
Venice as Ruskin’s painfully elaborated drawings do not.—Samuel Isham. 


VENETIAN GLASS WORKERS Martin A. Ryerson collection 
Painted in 1886. Canvas: 22 x 33% inches. 
An interior with five figures, mostly in the cool gray tones characteristic of 
this period, with sharp contrasts of light and dark. The light falling from 
a high window at the left background and that from an unseen window in 
front strikes on the figures of the workers who are shaping great sheets of 
glass, and who are so intent upon their tasks that they seem quite uncon- 
scious of being under observation. Especially well characterized is the 
figure of the woman at the right of the foreground, whose action is ex- 
ceedingly well suggested. 


VENETIAN BEAD STRINGERS Albright Art Gallery, Buffalo 


Exhibited at Society of American Artists, New York, 1893; at Sargent 
loan exhibition, Boston, 1899; at eighth annual exhibition of selected 


144 





Copyrighted, 1924, Grand Central Art Galleries, New York 


MRS. AUGUSTUS HEMENWAY 


Collection of Mrs. Hemenway, Boston 





OIL PAINTINGS, STUDIES AND SKETCHES 


paintings by American artists, Albright Art Gallery, Buffalo, 1913; at 
Grand Central Galleries, New York, 1924. 

Formerly in collection of Carroll Beckwith. 

The picture, painted in a subdued tone, depicts a large bare interior with 
three figures of women in the foreground near a window. Two of these 
women are seated, and the third is standing, looking down and holding a 
fan. The attitude of all three gives an impression of lassitude and depres- 
sion. In the background is an old stairway, a window, and a door; at the 
right a bench stands near the wall. Acquired in 1917, and illustrated in 
Academy Notes, October-December, 1917. 


VENETIAN WATER CARRIERS W orcester Art Museum 
Exhibited at National Academy of Design, New York, 1910. 
Two women are shown at a public well. One of them is drawing up the 
bucket, and the other, who has already filled her water pail, is starting for 
home. In the background is a plaster-walled building, and an open door. 
The action of the figures is noticeably well rendered, especially that of the 
woman at the left, who is carrying off a full pail of water. The color 
scheme is chiefly of grays, with effective contrasts of black and white. 


MRS. CHARLES P. CURTIS 
Exhibited at Boston Art Museum, 1916 and 1919. 


MRS. AND MISS BURCKHARDT 

Exhibited at Paris Salon of 1886. 

Portrait of mother and daughter. The former occupies an armchair in the 
foreground, while the young lady, somewhat farther back in the room, 
stands with her hands resting on the back of the chair. The mother, an 
elderly woman, but well preserved, bears in her face the marks of a life 
passed in ease and luxury. She has the indefinable air of a personage of 
assured social position. Her eyes are suggestive of a keen and original 
character, alert intelligence, and a kindly disposition. The daughter, who 
is the young person whose full-length portrait was first shown in the Salon 
of 1881, when she was five years younger, has now become a grown 
woman. She holds herself erect, serious, enigmatic, and aristocratic. 

This intelligence, the product of temperament and love of his art, rules 
supreme in the works of Sargent. . . . The superior nature of his 


145 


CATALOGUE OF JOHN SINGER SARGENT 


mind gives him the power of combining lightness of handling with depth 
of sentiment—a combination exceedingly rare among the painters of our 
time. A picture by Sargent is the result of justice and decision, of sobriety 
and research; its color is calm and forcible, always very harmonious, 
without weakness.—Paul de Labrosse in Revue Illustrée. 

Mr. Sargent’s prodigious dexterity astonishes less than it did; there are now 
too many prestidigitators at the Salon; we are getting a little tired of their 
exercises. Fortunately, Mr. Sargent does not rest satisfied to be merely a 
clever man; he is a seeker of attitudes and a composer quite out of the 
ordinary routine order. He is fond of rare elegances, with a slight touch 
of strangeness; thus he does not choose his models from among the fetite 
bourgeoisie. ‘The portrait of Mme. and Mlle. B., two beautiful ladies in a 
single frame, produces the usual effect upon the public; a sort of exotic 
aroma emanates from them which intoxicates the beholder. Some, how- 
ever, turn away, saying that it is unwholesome painting, and hasten to 
breathe a little pure air in front of the canvases of M. Bouguereau. 


Alfred de Lostalot in Gazette des Beaux-Arts. 


MRS. WILLIAM PLAYFAIR 
Exhibited at Royal Academy, 1887; at Paris Salon of 1888. 


Life-size; three-quarters length; three-quarters front view. Showing, 
against a lie de vin background, a lady of majestic proportions, dressed in 
satin of a yellowish white, and draped in a bottle-green velvet cloak 
trimmed with black fur. The brilliancy of this costume in no degree 
obscures the clear brightness and harmony of the flesh tones. 


One of his most delicate works. . . . Everything is indicated with a 
supreme lightness, charm and distinction. And it is the light, the sweet 
counsellor of all fine painting, that shows here its beneficent magic. 
André Michel. 
Mr. Sargent’s subtlety of modelling and personal manner of seeing things 
have never been better exemplified than in the flesh painting of the portrait 
referred to.—Saturday Review. 
The painter has been able to give to his sitter an intensity of physical life, 
even a charm—born of frankness and good humor—that makes it one of 
his truest and most wholly satisfactory works. The artist’s virtuosity is 
shown in the remarkable lighting of the head and figure, in the ingenious 
way with which the light-and-shade effect comes into play to vanquish 


146 


OIL PAINTINGS, STUDIES AND SKETCHES 


certain difficulties inherent in the subject, and, to a lesser degree, in the 
color, which is novel and piquant rather than truly transparent and 
luminous.—Sir Claude Phillips in Gazette des Beaux-Arts. 


MRS. H. G. MARQUAND 
Exhibited at Royal Academy, 1888; at Sargent loan exhibition, Copley 
Hall, Boston, 1899; at Philadelphia; at Pittsburgh. 
Full-length, seated, holding a fan in the right hand. Costume of black 
with broad white lace collar and fichu. Painted at Newport, R. I., in 1887. 
There is not in modern portraiture a more satisfactory study in dignity and 
noble stateliness than his ‘““Mrs. Marquand.”—Royal Cortissoz. 
Is perhaps the most delicate and refined of all that he has produced; in it 
he evinces a respect for his sitter and a reserve in his execution which 
assuredly mark progress in his brilliant career.—Sir Claude Phillips. 
Perhaps the most unexceptionably charming thing that Mr. Sargent has 
painted. There is nothing in the color or the workmanship that the most 
captious could call careless, ostentatious, or eccentric, and few will fail to 
see that they have been inspired by a really sympathetic perception of the 
character of the sitter.—Saturday Review. 
This is a piece of fine quality, and, in its tone and color, of a very choice 
kind, admirable for its harmonious disposition of the masses, treatment of 
the textures, and light. The delicately true hands have been studied with 
uncommon zest and taste—The Athenaeum. 


MRS. EDWARD D. BRANDEGEE 

Exhibited at Boston Art Museum, 1916 and 1924. 

Three-quarters length; standing figure; in a white muslin dress, with light 
blue ribbon at the waist, and a string of blue beads around the neck. A shawl 
has fallen from the lady’s shoulders to the level of her waist, where it is 
held in place by both hands, Pearl earrings. The right elbow rests on a 
massive balustrade. Dark foliage back of the figure at the right, and a 
glimpse of the sea in the distance at the left. The picture is enlivened by 
some stray spots of direct sunlight falling on the balustrade at the left of 
the foreground. 


GORDON FAIRCHILD Fairchild collection 


Exhibited at Copley Gallery, Boston, 1917; at Boston Art Museum, 1925. 
Life-size sketch portrait of a boy, sitting tailor-fashion in a wicker arm- 


147 


CATALOGUE OF JOHN SINGER SARGENT 


chair, and resting his head against a cushion. The pose appears to have been 
taken spontaneously. ‘There is something very natural and agreeable about 
the tilt of the charming head, the downward glance of the eyes, and the 
slightly parted lips. 


GORDON FAIRCHILD Fairchild collection 
Small head. 

SALLY FAIRCHILD Fairchild collection 
Three-quarters length. 

SALLY FAIRCHILD Fairchild collection 
‘Three-quarters length. Unfinished. 

MRS. CHARLES FAIRCHILD Fairchild collection 
Head. 


DENNIS MILLER BUNKER 
Exhibited at St. Botolph Club, Boston, 1888-1889. 
A Boston painter of distinct merit who died early. 


FREDERIC P. VINTON 


Sketch portrait of the leading portraitist of Boston, painted in Vinton’s 
studio, where Sargent painted several of his series of portraits in 1888. 


COUNTESS CLARY ALDRINGEN 
Exhibited at New Gallery, London, 1888. 


MRS. EDWARD D. BOIT Collection of the Misses Boit 

Exhibited at Royal Academy, 1888; at St. Botolph Club, Boston, 1888-— 
1889; at Paris Universal Exposition of 1900. 
Nearly full-fength. It shows her sitting on a sofa, the left arm resting on 
a velvet cushion, and the hands loosely clasped together. ‘The lips are parted 
in a half-smile, and the eyes are directed towards the left with an amused 
expression. Her costume is composed of a light figured silk skirt and a dark 
waist with V-shaped neck and elbow-length sleeves; she wears a hair 
ornament of feathers. 


148 


OIL PAINTINGS, STUDIES AND SKETCHES 


The wife of Edward D. Boit, the artist, who was one of Sargent’s most 
intimate friends in Paris in the eighties. She was the mother of the four 
little girls of the ““Boit Children” group, now in the Boston Art Museum. 
He gives free rein to his eccentric fancy, rendering with astonishing verve 
and unconventionality a joyous and exuberant personality. 


Sir Claude Phillips. 


Made an impression of power like a Velasquez.—Richard Muther. 


” 


Painted in a broad large style. Abounding in “go, 
garized—T he A thenaeum. 


it is a Velasquez vul- 


MR. EDWARD D. BOIT 


MRS. CHARLES E. INCHES 


Exhibited at Society of American Artists, New York, 1888; at National 
Academy of Design, New York, 1888; at St. Botolph Club, Boston, 1888— 
1889; at World’s Columbian Exposition, Chicago, 1893; at loan exhibi- 
tion of portraits of women, Boston, 1895; at Sargent loan exhibition, 
Copley Hall, Boston, 1899; at Grand Central Galleries, New York, 1924; 
at Boston Art Museum, 1924. 

Painted in 1888. Half-length; full face. This brilliant painting of a 
beautiful young lady shows her in a red velvet dress, sleeveless, and 
décolleté, revealing shapely arms, shoulders and neck, on which the head is 
finely poised. The thick, dark dair is dressed high on the top of the head; 
and the dark eyes are turned slightly to one side under their heavy 
eyebrows. 


We had remembered always, from 1899, the portrait of Mrs. Charles 
Inches, the study of a figure in ruby red velvet, never seen in the interval, 
but recalled in unfading vividness for its sensitive modelling and drawing 
and for its pure color. We wondered if it would reappear and how it would 
look. It looks now as it looked then, a superb bit of craftsmanship. Not a 
scintilla of its brilliance has it lost. Its flashing beauty remains as potent. 
For this portrait, at all events, time has stood still—Royal Cortissoz. 


CASPER GOODRICH Mrs. Goodrich’s collection 


Exhibited at St. Botolph Club, Boston, 1888-1889; at New York, 1889- 
1890, at Sargent loan exhibition, Copley Hall, Boston, 1899; at Boston 
Art Museum, 1904. 


149 


CATALOGUE OF JOHN SINGER SARGENT 


Painted in 1888. This likeness of a little boy in a sailor’s suit is a charming 
interpretation of boyish character. 

Not only in the Miss Beatrice Goelet, but in the Hon. Laura Lister, the 
Homer Saint-Gaudens, the Master Goodrich, and the Boit Children, he 


has treated adolescence with the most searching understanding. 
Royal Cortissoz. 


MRS. JOHN L. GARDNER Fenway Court, Boston 
Exhibited at St. Botolph Club, Boston, 1888-1889; at Fenway Court, 
Boston, 1925. 

Full-length; front view. She wears a black gown which is cut low at the 
neck, with short sleeves. Pearl ornaments at neck and waist. The hands 
are loosely clasped together. The pattern of the tapestry in the background 
forms an irregular circle just back of the lady’s head, suggesting the idea 
of a nimbus. 

It remains in the imagination as a question that contains its own answer.— 


Elizabeth Ward Perkins. 


GENERAL LUCIUS FAIRCHILD 
Exhibited at St. Botolph Club, Boston, 1888-1889. 
American soldier and diplomatist. As colonel of the Second Wisconsin 
Regiment he lost his left arm at Gettysburg. Governor of Wisconsin, 
1866-1872; United States consul at Liverpool, 1872-1878; Consul- 
General at Paris, 1878-1880; Minister to Spain, 1880-1882; Com- 
mander-in-chief, Grand Army of the Republic, 1886. 


MRS. LUCIUS FAIRCHILD 
Exhibited at St. Botolph Club, Boston, 1888-1889. 


CLAUDE MONET National Academy of Design 
Exhibited at the New Gallery, London, 1888; at Sargent loan exhibition, : 
Boston, 1899. 

A sketch of the French impressionist master painting out of doors. Painted 
at Giverny, in 1888. 
Expresses character with great breadth and freedom.—Saturday Review. 


CECIL, SON OF ROBERT HARRISON, ESQ. 
Exhibited at Royal Academy, London, 1888. 


150 


OIL PAINTINGS, STUDIES AND SKETCHES 


MRS. DAVE H. MORRIS AS A GIRL Mrs. Morris’s collection 
Painted in 1888. 
Exhibited at World’s Columbian Exposition, Chicago, 1893; at Sargent 
loan exhibition, Copley Hall, Boston, 1899, under title of “Portrait of a 
Child”; at Grand Central Galleries, New York, 1924. Formerly in the 
collection of Mrs. E. F. Shepard. A brunette type. She has jet-black hair 
and dark eyes, and, with her fine complexion, is the very picture of health. 
She wears a dark blue-black jacket over a white waist. At the left of the 
foreground is a blue figured cushion. 


MRS. ELLIOTT F. SHEPARD 
Painted in 1888. 


SKETCH OF A CHILD Doctor Gorham Bacon’s collection 
Exhibited at St. Botolph Club, Boston, 1888-1889; at National Academy 
of Design, New York, 1895; at Sargent loan exhibition, Copley Hall, 
Boston, 1899. 


SONS OF MRS. MALCOLM FORBES 
Exhibited at St. Botolph Club, Boston, 1888-1889. 


MISS DAISY LEITER 


Full-length; outdoor setting. Miss Leiter is shown wearing a white silk 
dress, with the draperies blown about by a brisk breeze. In the taste of the 
British eighteenth-century school. Miss Leiter became the Countess of 
Suffolk. 

A word must be said of the graceful American girl, Miss Leiter, who 
figures in surroundings that it would have pleased Sir Joshua to paint her, 
and . . . must have proved a subject no less grateful to the aesthetic taste 


of Mr. Sargent—Frank Fowler. 


MISS ELLEN TERRY AS LADY MACBETH 
Tate Gallery, London 
Exhibited at the New Gallery, London, 1889; at Royal Academy, 1890; 
at New Salon, Paris, 1890; at World’s Columbian Exposition, Chicago, 
1893; at sixty-third exhibition Pennsylvania Academy; at Royal Hiber- 
nian Academy, Dublin, 1898. 


151 


CATALOGUE OF JOHN SINGER SARGENT 


Full-length. The pose is that taken by the actress at the moment when she 
is about to place the royal crown of Duncan upon her head. The gold 
reflects a reddish glow on the palms of her hands. She holds the crown in 
both hands, momentarily suspended over her head, and the inscrutable 
expression of her eyes would appear to convey the sudden perception of 
some startling vision. She is wearing the robe of metallic blue with long 
green sleeves decorated all over with iridescent beetle wings, designed for 
Sir Henry Irving’s revival of the tragedy at the Lyceum Theatre. The 
picture, which was formerly in the possession of Sir Henry Irving, was 
presented to the Tate Gallery in 1906 by Mr. J. J. Duveen. 


Opinion rages around it, and it enjoys the distinction . . . of being the 
best-hated picture of the year. . . . There is no attempt to idealize the 
subject, no thought of giving us Lady Macbeth herself; it is strictly and 
limitedly Miss Ellen Terry in that particular part, made as real underneath 
her stage artificiality as the painter knows how to make her. In fact, it is a 
tour de force of realism applied to the artificial, the actress caught and 
fixed, not as the individuality assumed, but as herself seen through and 
outside of the assumption. . . . This portrait will always remain eminent 
among his productions as one of the most characteristic specimens of his 
bold and learned mannerism pushed to its extremity.—Saturday Review. 


Who can forget the Ellen Terry as Lady Macbeth, that was manifestly 
the most important painting of 1889, and dominated the New Gallery, 
even as it reigned supreme amid far more distinguished company in the 
Exposition de la Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts, at the Champ de Mars 
in 1890? Critics said it was not like Miss Terry, that it represented no 
incident in the play, but that the bondage of old tradition is burst with 
volcanic force has been naturally a shock to many sensitive souls. Brutal in 
its vigor, daring to the verge of reckless charlatanism, it yet escaped all 
perils, and was a splendid victory for the new school. 

. “Letters to Living Artists.” 


Seems to have been studied in a theatrical spasm of rare force. This start- 
ling piece has more of the Lyceum spectacle about it than of Shakespeare 
or Lady Macbeth.—The Athenaeum. 


The picture of me is nearly finished and I think it magnificent. The green 
and blue of the dress is splendid, and the expression as Lady Macbeth holds 
the crown over her head is quite wonderful.—Ellen Terry’s Diary, 1888. 


Ere 





COVEN DRY 2pAd MORE, ESQ, 


Courtesy of National Portrait Gallery, London, and William Heinemann, Ltd., London 


OIL PAINTINGS, STUDIES AND SKETCHES 


SIR HENRY IRVING 
Exhibited at Royal Academy, 1889. — 


A sketch. Called a tour de force of clever brushwork. As a likeness it was 
said to approach caricature, the strongly marked physiognomy of the sitter 
being emphasized. 


A good but pitiless sort of likeness—The Athenaeum. 


Everybody hates Sargent’s head of Henry. Henry also. I like it, but not 
altogether. I think it perfectly wonderfully painted and like him, only not 
at his best by any means. There sat Henry, and there by his side the picture, 
and I could scarce tell one from t’other. Henry looked white, with tired 
eyes, and holes in his cheeks, and bored to death! And there was the pic- 
ture with white face, tired eyes, holes in the cheeks, and boredom in every 
line. Sargent tried to paint his smile and gave it up.—Ellen Terry’s Diary. 


MRS. GEORGE GRIBBLE 
Exhibited at Royal Academy, 1889. 


A stylistic portrait of a lady wearing a blue fox boa; it was characteris- 
tically notable for the breadth and skill of the execution displayed. ‘The 
drawing and construction of the head and neck were particularly com- 
mended. 

Really lively and spontaneous brushwork, and delicate aerial color lift the 
dress and surroundings to the level of poetical still life Saturday Review. 


GEORGE HENSCHEL 


Exhibited at Royal Academy, 1889; at St. Botolph Club, Boston, 1890; at 
Sargent loan exhibition, Boston, 1899. 


This likeness of one of Sargent’s musical friends is a simple bust, but with 
an animation and a tilt of the head that is most characteristic and which 
gives it a pervading impression of lifelikeness. 
Mr. Sargent shows us Mr. Henschel’s head with a style that may be called 
a lively commentary on the character of the forms he treats. 

Saturday Review. 


A daring piece of work; those who have struggled with the difficulties of a 
life-size face will appreciate the hit-or-miss cleverness of it best. 


The Spectator. 
153 


CATALOGUE OF JOHN SINGER SARGENT 


PORTRAIT OF DOCTOR CARROLL DUNHAM 
Louis B. McCagg collection 
Exhibited at National Academy of Design, New York, 1898; at Pennsyl- 
vania Academy, 1899; at Sargent loan exhibition, Copley Hall, Boston, 
1899. 
Painted in 1889-1890. 


MRS. R. H. DERBY 
Exhibited at Society of American Artists, New York, 1889; at portrait 
exhibition in aid of the Orthopedic Hospital, New York, 1898; at Sargent 
loan exhibition, Copley Hall, Boston, 1899. 


ST. MARTIN’S SUMMER 
Exhibited at New English Art Club, Dudley Gallery, London, 1889; at 
St. Botolph Club, Boston, 1890; at Sargent loan exhibition, Copley Hall, 
Boston, 1899. 
Evidently painted under the direct inspiration of Claude Monet, but . 
none the worse for that.— Magazine of Art. 


A MORNING WALK | 
Exhibited at New English Art Club, Dudley Gallery, London, 1889. 
Somewhat unpleasing in color . . . infinite cleverness . . . scintillates 
with sunlight—Magazine of Art. 


M. PAUL HELLEU AND HIS WIFE Brooklyn Museum 
Exhibited at New English Art Club, London, 1892. 
An outdoor scene painted in the late summer of 1889, at Fladbury, near 
Pershore, Worcestershire. The right center foreground of the canvas is 
occupied by the figure of the noted French dry-point etcher, who is busily 
at work on a canvas which is propped up before him. His bearded face is 
mostly concealed by a straw hat. To the extreme right of the canvas is seen 
the figure of Mme. Helleu reclining on the ground and leaning against her 
husband’s shoulder. Her face also is shaded by a large straw hat. ‘These 
straw hats supply the high lights of the composition. The costumes are those 
of the end of the nineteenth century. The figures are placed in a surround- 
ing tangle of rushes on the banks of the Avon. Behind them is a red canoe 


154 


OIL PAINTINGS, STUDIES AND SKETCHES 


which furnishes the strongest color note in the picture, as well as a definite 
diagonal cross-cutting of the composition. The atmospheric impression of 
the painting is that of a somewhat misty afternoon shade. 


Canvas: 25 x 29% inches. 


ae Dy OF A BUST AT LILLE 
Exhibited at Sargent loan exhibition, Boston, 1899. 


That caressing instinct for delicacy of linear effect which a long time ago 
he showed to such beguiling purpose in the sketch he painted of the wax bust 
at Lille attributed to Raphael.—Royal Cortissoz. 


JAVANESE DANCER 


Exhibited at New English Art Club, London, 1891; at Sargent loan 
exhibition, Boston, 1899. 


A full-length and life-size study of one of the Javanese dancing girls seen 
-at the Paris Universal Exposition of 1889. 


The flat-footed, flat-handed action of the extreme East—a grace that has 
nothing to do with Raphael—is rendered with a delightful, amused and 
sympathetic appreciation.—Alice Meynell. 


MRS. KISSAM Mrs. George Vander bilt collection 


Exhibited at Royal Academy, 1890; at one hundred and twelfth exhibi- 
tion Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, 1917; at Corcoran Gallery, 
Washington, 1916-1917. 

Has the interest of an effort to catch a quick expression. The lady, at three- 
quarters length, standing, is dressed in a voluminous gown of reddish lilac 
silk, décolleté, with elbow-length sleeves; her ornaments including a pearl 
necklace. She lifts her skirt with her jewelled fingers, as if in the act of 
making a curtsey. She is smiling, rather shyly, with a twist of her upper lip, 
which shows the white row of teeth; there is a suggestion of roguish laugh- 
ter mixed with shyness in the dark eyes. 


We fully admit the power and the uncompromising truth which are shown 
in such a picture as the “Portrait of a Lady,” by Mr. Sargent, the American 
painter, whom we hope to be allowed to claim as almost a naturalized 
Englishman.—London Times. 


155 


CATALOGUE OF JOHN SINGER SARGENT 


BENJAMIN P. KISSAM Mrs. Arthur C. Train’s collection 


Exhibited at Sargent loan exhibition, Copley Hall, Boston, 1899. 
Painted in 1890. 


ROBERT HARRISON, ESQ. 
Painted in 1890. 


PORTRATIVS TUDY, 
Exhibited at Royal Academy, 1890. 


Conveys in a remarkable degree the action of the figure. In the steep garden 
of a country house a tall young girl stands posing for the artist. 


She humps her shoulders and sticks out her chin, with defiant arms akimbo, 
but there she stands and will stand as long as oil and canvas hold together. 
It is ugly; it is a caricature; but it lives-—Saturday Review. 


EDWIN BOOTH The Players, New York 


Head and bust. Full front view. The eyes are turned to the sitter’s right. 
Painted about 1890. The tragedian was at that time fifty-seven years old. 
He died in 1893, in the clubhouse of The Players, which he had founded 
in 1888. 


SKETCH OF EDWIN BOOTH Fairchild collection 


Exhibited at loan exhibition of portraits, Copley Hall, Boston, 1896; at 
Sargent loan exhibition, Copley Hall, Boston, 1899; at Boston Art 
Museum, 1916. 


The original sketch for the portrait in the possession of ‘The Players, New 
York. It was painted in three-quarters of an hour. About 1890. 


EDWIN BOOTH | Mrs. Elmhurst collection 


LAWRENCE BARRETT The Players, New York 
Exhibited at National Academy of Design, New York, 1890. 


Star actor and manager; he was closely associated with Edwin Booth dur- 
ing the last five or six years of the latter’s life, and wrote the lives of 
Edwin Forrest and Edwin Booth. 


156 





THE HONORABLE LAURA LISTER 


Collection of Lady Lovat, London 


Reproduced from the photogravure by courtesy of William Heinemann, Ltd., London 





OIL PAINTINGS, STUDIES AND SKETCHES 


JOSEPH JEFFERSON The Players, New York 


Exhibited at National Academy of Design, New York, 1890; at New 
English Art Club, London, 1893. — 

Depicts the actor in the part of Doctor Pangloss in “The Heir-at-Law.” 
Half-length; seated; the head crowned by a huge powdered wig; the eyes 
wide open and staring; the mouth set in a dogmatic manner, yet with a hint 
of underlying humor. It is a remarkably combined presentation of the actor 
himself and the personage of the drama. 


Engraved by Henry Wolf for the Century Magazine, June, 1896. 


SKETCH OF JOSEPH JEFFERSON 

Exhibited at Sargent loan exhibition, Copley Hall, Boston, 1899; at 
Boston Art Museum, 1916 and 1924; at Grand Central Galleries, New 
York, 1924; at Panama-Pacific Exposition, San Francisco, 1915; at 
Corcoran Gallery, Washington, 1916-1917; at St. Botolph Club, Boston, 
1922. 

This rapidly made and loosely executed portrait study of the famous 
actor’s head is of amazing vitality. The expression of the keen, staring eyes 
and the humorous mouth is especially remarkable. It is the actor, rather 
than the man, yet in Jefferson’s case the two were almost identical. It is 
very true to a certain phase of his stage presence. 


SENATOR HENRY CABOT LODGE 
Exhibited at nineteenth annual exhibition of the Society of American 
Artists, New York, 1897; at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, 
1898; at the Sargent loan exhibition, Copley Hall, Boston, 1899; at the 
second biennial exhibition of oil paintings by contemporary American 
artists, Corcoran Gallery, Washington, 1908-1909. 
Painted in 1890. 


MOTHER AND CHILD Livingston Davis collection 
Exhibited at National Academy of Design, New York, 1890; at Society of 
American Artists, New York, 1891; at Boston Art Museum, 1891; at 
World’s Columbian Exposition, Chicago, 1893; at loan exhibition of por- 
traits of women, Boston, 1895; at Pennsylvania Academy, 1896; at 
Sargent loan exhibition, Copley Hall, Boston, 1899; at Worcester Art 
Museum, 1909; at Boston Art Museum, 1916, 1919, 1924. 


157 


CATALOGUE OF JOHN SINGER SARGENT 


The portrait of Mrs. Edward L. Davis and her son, Livingston Davis, 
painted in 1890, is full-length, life-size, and shows the two figures stand- 
ing. The lady, who wears black with a touch of white at the throat, has 
thrown her left arm about her little boy’s neck. He in turn holds his right 
arm about his mother’s waist. He wears a broad-brimmed straw hat and a 
white sailor suit. He is a very charming young lad with brown hair and eyes 
and an honest, sober glance. One of the best of Sargent’s works of this 
period. 


A work in which the artist has risen above his art, and, with keen sympa- 
thetic insight, has rendered, through consummate skill, a virile inter- 
pretation of gentle character, which, because of its truth, must prove 
enduring.—Leila Mechlin. 


MISS KATHERINE PRATT Frederick §. Pratt collection 


Exhibited at New Salon, Paris, 1890; at World’s Columbian Exposition, 
Chicago, 1893; at Pennsylvania Academy, 1894; at loan exhibition of 
portraits of women, Boston, 1895; at Sargent loan exhibition, Copley Hall, 
Boston, 1899; at Corcoran Gallery, Washington, 1910-1911; at Wor- 
cester Art Museum, 1914; at Grand Central Galleries, New York, 1924; 
at Boston Art Museum, 1916 and 1924. 


Half-length; in a white muslin dress; with a string of amber beads around 
the neck; eyes turned to left; landscape background. One hand is lifted 
to her bosom, the fingers just touching her necklace. The position of both 
hands is to be remarked, as well as the contributory significance they have 
in the revelation of personality. 


The realization of a living and breathing personality. The attitude of 
maidenly unconsciousness, one hand resting on her side while the fingers of 
the other lightly and listlessly touch the circle of gold beads that clasp the 
throat, is “felt”? with a sensitiveness and artistic insight that are marks of 
a high order of creative work. There is much that is psychic in this inter- 
pretation of a human being.— Review of Reviews. 


PORTRAIT SKETCH Frederick §. Pratt collection 


Exhibited at exhibition of contemporary American paintings owned in 
Worcester County, Worcester Art Museum, 1914. 


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OIL PAINTINGS, STUDIES AND SKETCHES 


GARDEN SKETCH Frederick §. Pratt collection 


Exhibited at exhibition of contemporary American paintings owned in 
Worcester County, Worcester Art Museum, 1914. 


MRS. FRANCIS H. DEWEY 
Exhibited at Corcoran Gallery, Washington, 1912-1913; at seventeenth 
international exhibition Carnegie Institute, Pittsburgh, 1913; at exhibition 
of contemporary American paintings owned in Worcester County, Wor- 
cester Art Museum, 1914. 
Showing what might perhaps be termed the Manet influence of simplifi- 
cation of mass, this portrait study, rendered with almost startling directness 
and yet wonderful insight and penetration, is found to be very moving as 
well as beautiful—Art and Progress. 
Of compelling power and subtlety. . . . The simplicity of its composition, 
the daring contrasts of color, the rapidity and breadth of the execution, 
conjoined with an amazing delicacy in the modelling of the brows and the 
flesh of the face, correspond to the meditative richness and fullness of a 
repressed temperament in a personage who seems finely Latin rather than 
Anglo-Saxon.—Worcester Telegram. 


MRS. AUGUSTUS P. LORING 


Exhibited at St. Botolph Club, Boston, 1891; at Boston Art Museum, 
1891; at Pennsylvania Academy, 1891; at Society of American Artists, 
1891; at Sargent loan exhibition, Copley Hall, Boston, 1899; at Boston 
Art Museum, 1916; at Grand Central Galleries, New York, 1924. 


Three-quarters length; life-size. The lady is in white, and she is sitting on 
a white chair out of doors. Her oval face wears a fatigued and disturbed 
expression. The coloring of this piece is pure and luminous; the flesh tones 
are especially fine. Autumn foliage in the background. 


GEORGE PEABODY George A. Peabody collection 
Exhibited at Copley Hall, Boston, 1898 and 1899. 
Painted in 1890. 


PETER CHARDON BROOKS Mrs. Saltonstall’s collection 


Exhibited at St. Botolph Club, Boston, 1891; at Modern Painters exhibi- 
tion, Boston, 1898; at Sargent loan exhibition, Copley Hall, Boston, 1899; 


159 


CATALOGUE OF JOHN SINGER SARGENT 


at Grand Central Galleries, New York, 1924; at Boston Art Museum, 
1925. 

Bust length; three-quarters front view. It depicts the florid complexion, 
curling hair, and gray moustache of the sitter with an apt and fluent touch. 
Painted at West Medford in October, 1890. 


MRS. PETER C. BROOKS Mrs. Saltonstall’s collection 
Exhibited at loan exhibition of portraits of women, Copley Hall, Boston, 
1895; at Sargent loan exhibition, Copley Hall, Boston, 1899; at Boston 
Art Museum, 1915 and 1925. 

Painted at West Medford in October, 1890. 


MRS. RICHARD M. SALTONSTALL Saltonstall collection 
Exhibited at loan exhibition of portraits of women, Copley Hall, Boston, 
1895; at Sargent loan exhibition, Copley Hall, Boston, 1899; at Boston 
Art Museum, 1925. 

Painted at West Medford in October, 1890. 

A tall canvas, showing the figure of a lady in a pink summer gown, hold- 
ing a white lace parasol in her hand, and wearing a large garden hat of 
light-green straw. A striking effect; although the picture lacks distinction 
in color. Mrs. Saltonstall is the daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Peter C. Brooks. 


CARMENCITA Luxembourg Museum, Paris 
Exhibited at Society of American Artists, New York, 1890; at Royal 
Academy, 1891; at exhibition of American art in Paris, 1919. 
Full-length figure. The famous Spanish dancer, in a rich silk costume of 
orange and black, elaborately embroidered, stands with her right foot 
slightly advanced, and her right arm akimbo, in an attitude of jaunty self- 
assurance, which is matched by the professional confidence of her facial 
expression. One of Sargent’s most celebrated works. Painted in New York, 
in 1890. 

For ever Carmencita stands waiting for the beginning of the music... . 
In Carmencita we have that living beauty from which, after all, a dreamer 
must take every one of his dreams.—T.. Martin Wood. 

As brilliant and as clever as it is at first repellant. . . . The picture kills 
everything on the wall, and surpasses for strength almost every modern 
picture I have ever seen.—M. H. Spielmann. 


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Copyright, The Art Institute of Chicago 


MRS. GEORGE SWINTON 


My. 





OIL PAINTINGS, STUDIES AND SKETCHES 


Her feet, marvellously painted, seem to twinkle with movement. The pose 
of the head and the treatment of the draperies are admirable; the hands 
alone leave something to be desired.—Saturday Review. 

What one gets from it is, in the first place, an extraordinary sense of vital- 
ity; this, one is half inclined to say, is not a picture, it is the living being 
itself, and when the music strikes up she will bound away in the dance. 


London Times. 


SKETCH OF CARMENCITA SINGING 


Exhibited at Sargent loan exhibition, Copley Hall, Boston, 1899. 
Painted in 1890. 


MRS. COMYNS CARR 
Exhibited at New Gallery, London, 1890; at Knoedler Gallery, New 
York, 1924. . 
A rapid sketch. 


IGHTHAM MOAT HOUSE 
Exhibited at New Gallery, London, 1890. 
An unusual sketch, in cool tones, of an ancient Elizabethan house in 
Sussex, with a group of people playing at bowls on the lawn, towards 
evening. The figures are brushed in with the most admirable suggestion of 
their action; and they are in precisely the right relation to their green and 
purple landscape setting. 
The sense of space . . . which the picture gives, is enormous; the cool 
freshness most restful and delightful; the drawing of the figures is more 
than good; their pose and composition, and, as it were, incidental character, 
leave, as a house agent would say, nothing to be desired. Most admirable of 
all is the impression of reality which the scene conveys. The painter entirely 
disappears from sight, and as for the manner by which he has arrived at his 
result, we neither know nor care anything. The result is there—a vivid 
impression of a real evening with real figures enjoying the coolness. 


Harry Quilter. 


BEATRICE GOELET Robert Goelet collection 
Exhibited at thirteenth exhibition of Society of American Artists, New 


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CATALOGUE OF JOHN SINGER SARGENT 


York, 1891; at loan exhibition of portraits, National Academy of Design, 
New York, 1895. 


This is generally and justly regarded as one of the artist’s most flawless 
masterpieces. It portrays a very young maiden, at full length, standing by 
the side of a high gilt cage in which a cockatoo is seen on his perch. The 
little child is a quaint and picturesque figure in her long skirt, which comes 
down to the floor, with her pretty pale golden hair tied with a knot of pink 
ribbon, her tiny hands loosely joined before her with the finger tips touch- 
ing, and, above all, in her sober and demure sidelong glance, which has all 
the mysterious and captivating nature of a childish reverie, half wistful 
and half wondering, but not in the least afraid. The gown is of silk with 
stripes of pink and gray. Engraved by Henry Wolf for the Century 
Magazine, June, 1896. 


A painting in which the innocent sweetness of childhood unfolds itself like 
a flower.—Royal Cortissoz. 


Beatrice is one of the timid little spirits whose rare charm only a great 
painter could divine.-—Estelle M. Hurll. 


All of his technical skill, all of his taste, all of the sentiment and emo- 
tional feeling that may be in his personality, seem to be shown in his beau- 
tiful child portrait, Beatrice. . . . The naive look, the childish character, 
are given with convincing drawing and exquisite coloring. It shows the 
painter at his very best, and it must always be accounted one of his pro- 
nounced successes.—John C. Van Dyke. 


The charm seems to lie in the marvelous excellence of the painter’s hand- 
work, expressing, as it does, so perfectly the sweet attraction of beautiful 


childhood.—William A. Coffin. 


Mr. Sargent had seen not only form and color with clearness and acute- 
ness, but also the baby soul behind them; and he had reproduced them all se 
beautifully that, when the tears came in one’s eyes from sheer delight, it 
was hard to tell whether emotion was more touched by the work of nature 
or the work of art. Yet when we reflect a minute, and say again, a pearl 
among babies portrayed in a pearl among pictures, we feel that art must 
be allowed the chief share in the result. . . . To art, not nature, will be 
due the credit when in later years this child shall win an immortality like 
that with which a Velasquez or a Van Dyck endowed the royal children of 
his brush. I should hesitate to say that this is the finest picture Mr. Sargent 


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OIL PAINTINGS, STUDIES AND SKETCHES 


has painted, but it is one of the very finest, and is certainly the loveliest of 


them all.—M. G. Van Rensselaer. 


MRS. THOMAS LINCOLN MANSON 

Collection of Mrs. K. Van Rensselaer 
Painted in 1891. 
Exhibited at Royal Academy, London, 1891; at loan exhibition of por- 
traits of women in New York, 1913; at the Sargent loan exhibition in 
Boston, 1899; at Grand Central Galleries, New York, 1924 and 1925. 
Nearly full-length; seated on a sofa; the left arm and hand extended over 
the back of the sofa, and the right elbow resting on the sofa arm with the 
hand drooping. Full skirt of a changeable, striped brown silk, shot with 
greenish and reddish lights; closely fitting bodice of red silk, décolleté, with 
elbow-length sleeves: the style of the period interestingly documented. An 
able characterization, somewhat objective in the detachment of its manner, 
notably firm and precise in construction. 


Every touch on the face is expressive; there is actuality in every line of the 
hand and of the long, slender arm; while the painting of the dress of thin 
silk is of surprising lightness and truth. London Times. 


In conception and in execution one of the most individual and triumphant 
works that have come from the great painter’s hand. The admirable lady- 
like characterization shown in this charming figure seated on a square 
English sofa, clad in a gown of shot silk with stripes, and notes of black and 
cherry red, is one of the best and most sympathetic portrayals the artist has 
ever achieved. . . . It is an admirable piece of color, and is in general 
effect one of the most unified and harmonious compositions in the whole list 


of the artist’s works.—William A. Coffin. 


MRS. AUGUSTUS HEMENWAY 
Exhibited at loan exhibition of portraits of women, Copley Hall, Boston, 
1895; at Sargent loan exhibition, Copley Hall, Boston, 1899; at Boston 
Art Museum, 1915, 1916, 1919, and 1924; at Grand Central Art Gal- 
leries, New York, 1924. 
Signed and dated 1891. 
Half-length; full front. A notably fine example in the painter’s simplest, 
most direct and most brilliant manner. The head is that of a beautiful 
young woman, with rich transparent complexion, fine lustrous eyes, and 


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CATALOGUE OF JOHN SINGER SARGENT 


extremely handsome dark auburn hair. She is shown in the act of adjusting 
a single white water lily in the opening of the black waist she is wearing; 
and the position and action of the hands are admirably indicated with a 
touch of natural elegance and grace. This work easily takes place among 
Sargent’s best heads of any period; its condition to-day is as sound and fresh 
as on the day it was painted. 

No one has encountered the beauty of woman’s face more casually than 
Sargent; no one has made us realize more fully its significance as a fact in 
the world. After all, we had thought perhaps we were partly deceived in 
this matter by the illusions of poets and love-sick painters, but, approaching 
it without ecstasy, art has not been closer to this beauty than here. 


T. Martin Wood. 


MISS FAIRCHILD Charles Fairchild collection 
Exhibited at loan exhibition of portraits, Boston, 1896; at Sargent loan 
exhibition, Boston, 1899; at Boston Art Museum, 1916. 

Sketch portrait of a young child, painted in one evening. 


LADY HAMILTON 
Exhibited at St. Botolph Club, Boston, 1891; at Royal Academy, 1896; 
at the Sargent loan exhibition, Copley Hall, Boston, 1899; at Pennsyl- 
vania Academy, 1905. 
The American wife of General Sir Ian Hamilton is depicted sitting in an 
armchair and at three-quarters length. The skirt of her gown is white satin; 
a fluffy creation of white tulle or illusion covers her neck and shoulders; 
she holds a long closed fan in her left hand. A beautiful face looks out of 
this picture, confronting the world with an expression of perfect poise and 
serenity. he costume is painted with marvellous aptitude and breadth, and 
a remarkably sensitive feeling for texture. 
Quite admirable, full of character and spirit; as a picture, too, it is first- 
rate.-—The Athenaeum. 
The whole composition, in color, arrangement, and execution, breathes a 
spirit of refinement that is as charming as it is rare. If any other painter can 
paint such lovely pictures of women as this, we are at a loss to think of his 
name.—William A. Coffin. 
Now turn to Mr. Sargent’s picture and look at the lady’s satin dress. What 
a beautiful substance mere paint has become. How it flows, and changes its 


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OIL PAINTINGS, STUDIES AND SKETCHES 


light and its color, subservient to the artist’s will, while remaining beauti- 
ful in itself. The solvent of an alchemist seems to have made some sea- 
shell plastic, and compelled it to take the billowy form and subtle color of 
the dress in shadow where it flows in front of the warm flesh tones of the 
arm. Again, the gauzy stuff round the neck seems to be painted with some 
totally different material, so responsive is paint to Mr. Sargent’s hand. 
Besides the painting, the masterly drawing is conspicuous. 


H.S. in The Spectator. 


PORTRAIT OF A YOUNG GIRL 
Exhibited at New Gallery, London, 1891. 
A remarkable portrait is this of an unnamed young girl of about fourteen, 
in white, sitting in a church pew, with her finely painted slender hands 
clasped in her lap. Her soft brown hair falls on the shoulders; her great 
brown eyes, bold yet shy, are fixed on the spectator. Dark wainscoting in the 
background. 
In a picture of 1891 a most enchanting young girl, seen full-face, sat bolt- 
upright upon a plain high wooden chair, in front of dark wainscoting, 
looking dreamily and unsuspectingly before her out of widely opened, 
brown eyes like those of a gazelle-—Richard Muther. 
The rare qualities of this painting are unlikely to appeal to any but painters 
or those who have studied painting in a painter-like way. These qualities 
are grasp, frankness, certainty of vision, simplicity and directness of exe- 
cution. The grasp is verifiable almost from the moment of entering the 
exhibition. The portrait carries across the gallery out into the court; it is 
painted to tell at the right distance for a life-sized figure—not piecemeal 
for the microscope.—T he Spectator. 
Among the‘portraits, by far the most wonderful in its way, is Mr. John S. 
Sargent’s presentment of a young, white-robed lady, seated bolt-upright on 
a bare wooden settle fixed against a carved oaken wainscoting. She gazes 
straight out of the canvas at the spectator, with an extraordinary, almost 
crazy intensity of life in her wide-open brown eyes. . . . The irresistible 

- force and fascination of this singular embodiment of youthful vitality 
cannot be gainsaid.—M. H. Spielmann. 


LIFE STUDY OF AN EGYPTIAN GIRL = Charles Deering collection 
Exhibited at New English Art Club, London, 1891; at World’s Colum- 
bian Exposition, Chicago, 1893; at Sargent loan exhibition, Boston, 1899; 


165 


CATALOGUE OF JOHN SINGER SARGENT 


at Panama-Pacific Exposition, San Francisco, 1915; at Boston Art Mu- 
seum, 1916; at Grand Central Galleries, New York, 1924; at Corcoran 
Gallery, Washington, 1916-1917. 
The full-length nude figure of a slender young Egyptian model who is 
braiding her long hair in a pigtail. 
A superb studio study of the nude, masterly alike in strength, truth, and 
grace of drawing, and exhaustive painting of the golden flesh. 

Magazine of Art. 


Sargent was an admirable linear draughtsman before he was a painter, and 
now is an exquisite linear draughtsman when he cares to be so. He is a 
draughtsman of the nude figure as well as of the head, as his “Egyptian 
Girl” should remind us if it were necessary. It is his profound knowledge 
of form that renders his virtuosity possible—Kenyon Cox. 


EGYPTIAN INDIGO DYERS 


Exhibited at Institute of Painters in Oil Colours, London, 1898; at Sar- 
gent loan exhibition, Boston, 1899. 


Sketch. A brilliant and summary impression, which is rather tame in color. 


EGYPTIAN WOMAN 
Exhibited at Sargent loan exhibition, Copley Hall, Boston, 1899. 


Sketch of the profile of a hooded woman wearing a necklace of coins. 


BEDOUIN ARAB Sir Philip Sassoon collection 


Exhibited at Sargent loan exhibition, Copley Hall, Boston, 1899; at the 
Goupil Salon of Modern British Art, London, 1924. 


Sketch. A stern face with piercing eyes, the head swathed in a voluminous 
white burnouse. 


A living character study . . . with the magnificent insight and paint- 
quality so well known in this great artist—Amelia Defries. 


ASTARTE Fenway Court, Boston 
Exhibited at Sargent loan exhibition, Copley Hall, Boston, 1899. 
This is the original sketch for the far-famed figure of Astarte in the mural 


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OIL PAINTINGS, STUDIES AND SKETCHES 


decoration of the Boston Public Library. It was formerly in the collection 
of Sir Frederick Leighton, P.R.A., to whom it was presented by Sargent. 
It was painted in one day. 


. . » Came Ashtoreth, whom the Phoenicians 

Called Astarte, queen of heaven, with crescent horns; 

To whose bright image nightly by the moon 

Sidonian virgins paid their vows and songs; 

In Sion also not unsung, where stood 

Her temple on the offensive mountain, built 

By that uxorious king whose heart, though large, 

Beguiled by fair idolatresses, fell 

To idols foul. “Paradise Lost.” 


SKETCH OF THE ERECHTHEUM 
Exhibited at Sargent loan exhibition, Copley Hall, Boston, 1899. 


SKETCH OF THE TEMPLE OF DENDERAH 
Exhibited at Sargent loan exhibition, Copley Hall, Boston, 1899. 


SUNSET AT CAIRO 
Exhibited at Sargent loan exhibition, Copley Hall, Boston, 1899. 
Sketch. 


SKETCH OF A FELLAH WOMAN 
Exhibited at Sargent loan exhibition, Copley Hall, Boston, 1899. 


SKETCH OF SANTA SOFIA 
Exhibited at Sargent loan exhibition, Copley Hall, Boston, 1899. 


SKETCH AT CORFU 


Exhibited at Copley Hall, Boston, 1899; at Knoedler Galleries, New 
York, 1918. 


“Choice work.” “Very charming.” 


MISS HELEN DUNHAM James H. Dunham collection 
Exhibited at New English Art Club, London, 1892; at World’s Colum- 
bian Exposition, Chicago, 1893; at loan exhibition of portraits, National 


167 


CATALOGUE OF JOHN SINGER SARGENT 


Academy of Design, New York, 1895; at nineteenth exhibition Society of 
American Artists, New York, 1897; at Sargent loan exhibition, Copley 
Hall, Boston, 1899. 

Tenderness of color in the simple painting of the white draperies and 
sympathetic translation of character.—William A. Coffin. 


Painted in 1891-1892. 


SELF-PORTRAIT National Academy of Design, New York 


Sketch, bust length, the face nearly full front, heavily shadowed on the 
right side. 


PORTRAIT STUDY 
Exhibited at New English Art Club, London, 1892. 


MRS. HUGH HAMMERSLEY 
Exhibited at the New Gallery, London, 1893; at the Sargent loan exhi- 
bition, Copley Hall, Boston, 1899; at the Carnegie Institute international 
exhibition, Pittsburgh, 1923. 
Full-length. The lady is shown sitting on a square sofa upholstered in 
pinkish-brown silk. Her lips are slightly parted in a half-smile, and the 
expression about the eyes is agreeably animated. She wears a gown of 
carmine velvet, décolleté, with a long train, with lace at the neck and rich 
silver embroidery in a wide band at the bottom of the skirt. The room in 
which she is sitting is upholstered in white satin. Her head is held alertly, 
and she presses her left hand against the back of the sofa as if about to rise, 
perhaps to welcome a guest. Her feet, in pointed white satin slippers, are 
pressed the one on the other. 
Not beauty, exactly, but life, reality, an actual and captivating animation, 
are the keynotes of this extraordinary portrait Saturday Review. 
This is a thoroughly vigorous and extremely original piece of work, ad- 
mirable for its brilliancy and the harmony of its colors in high keys, which 
are most craftily disposed to harmonize with the luminous and yet solidly 
painted carnations of the lady. . . . The flesh painting may be called a 
wonder, so pure and deftly modelled are the features, bare arms and 
hands.—T he Athenaeum. 


A superb achievement. . . . It is a speaking face, a living figure, a bril- 
liant picture. . . . The picture is, indeed, like a charge in its suddenness 


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ASHER WERTHEIMER, ESQ. 


Courtesy of the National Gallery, London, and William Heinemann, Ltd., London 


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OIL PAINTINGS, STUDIES AND SKETCHES 


and bravura of attack. . . . It is a work of the imagination that sees its 
object for what it is, that presses close to it, that does not pass it off under 
some alien form of poetry or misfitting convention.—T he Spectator. 

A lady so vivacious that, though she is seated, she can be seated only mo- 
mentarily on the sofa which now holds her, and dressed in a robe of fullest 
rose-colored velvet, with silver lace and diamond stars. Mr. Sargent, 
though he has enjoyed painting the model, has enjoyed the accessories quite 
as much, and he has enjoyed perhaps most of all (since, I take it, he is but 
human), the delightful feat of distancing his contemporaries in sheer bril- 
liance, in sheer audacity, and in sheer chic. And his accomplishment of that 
feat I suppose there are few to contest.—Frederick Wedmore. 


MRS. GEORGE LEWIS 
Exhibited at New Gallery, London, 1893. 


The lady is shown standing, with her hands folded before her, in a black 
dress trimmed with gold, against a tapestry of faded gold and rose. 


The portrait of Mrs. George Lewis . . . is of a kind that may commend 
itself even to the unimaginative picture-seer, to the person who is incapable 
of meeting the modern artist half-way. Yet it is attractive in technique, 
and at once agreeable and unflinching in its record of the model. 


Frederick Wedmore. 


MRS. TWOMBLY 
Exhibited at Society of American Artists, New York, 1893. 
Seated in a Louis XV interior. 


Wrought with his slashing brush in a very smart, aggressive manner, but 
not particularly interesting otherwise—Magazine of Art. 


MRS. JOHN J. CHAPMAN (NEE CHANLER) 


Collection of Mrs. Richard Aldrich 
Painted in 1893. 


Exhibited at loan exhibition of portraits of women, National Academy of 
Design, New York, 1894; at Royal Academy, London, 1894; at the 
Roman Art exhibition, 1894; at the Sargent loan exhibition, Copley Hall, 
Boston, 1899; at the Grand Central Galleries, New York, 1924. 


Half-length, seated, full front; in black satin dress, square-cut neck, with 


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CATALOGUE OF JOHN SINGER SARGENT 


puffed short sleeves. The hands are clasped, the right arm resting on a 
warm-colored, figured brocade sofa cushion. In the background are two old 
paintings hanging on the wall. Miss Chanler, afterwards Mrs. Chapman, 
looks up with a girlish face full of pathos and candor, and, as one observer 
suggests, she seems about to rise and go away, being merely arrested a 
moment by wonder. 


We have seen more interesting portraits than Mr. Sargent’s “Miss Chanler,” 
but even he has rarely been more true or vivid.—Saturday Review. 


Holds its own in virtue of the large comprehension that seizes on structural 
planes and gives to the value of different parts in a whole their just notation 
with economy and eloquence of execution. It is a skilful deploying in their 
due order of the forces of an impression.—The Spectator. 


Mr. Sargent maintains his great position as a portraitist by his picture of 
Miss Chanler, a picture, however, which at first sight may be disappointing 
to the spectator, but which improves prodigiously upon acquaintance. 


M. H. Spielmann. 


LADY AGNEW 


Exhibited at Royal Academy, London, 1893; at the Sargent loan exhibi- 
tion, Copley Hall, Boston, 1899; at international exhibition Carnegie 
Institute, Pittsburgh, 1924. } 
Three-quarters length. Seated in a big white armchair, with a background 
formed by a curtain of pale blue Japanese silk. The gown is white, and the 
waist is encircled by a mauve silk sash. The hair is dark, and the face is full 
of charm, the calm and candid gaze of the handsome eyes full of char- 
acter. Lady Agnew was the daughter of the Hon. G. C. Vernon and grand- 
daughter of the first Baron Lyveden. Her husband was Sir Andrew Noel 
Agnew, Bart., of Lochnaw Castle, Starnraer, Wigtownshire. 


One of the most refined works he has ever painted.—Royal Cortissoz. 


A work painted entirely under the impulse of personal feeling, and never- 
theless stamped with strange beauty.—Saturday Review. 


The charm of the picture emanates from every element in it. The figure is 
graceful, dignified, but not haughty, and the ensemble is so charming that 
we must conclude, without knowing the sitter, that the artist has never suc- 
ceeded better than in this work in painting a portrait of a lady and invest- 
ing his portrayal with the qualities that make her lovely. 

William A. Coffin. 


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OIL PAINTINGS, STUDIES AND SKETCHES 


For refinement, distinction, sensitiveness, what could be better than the 
beautiful portrait of Lady Agnew?—John C. Van Dyke. 


HOMER SAINT-GAUDENS 


Exhibited at World’s Columbian Exposition, Chicago, 1893; at Sargent 
loan exhibition, Copley Hall, Boston, 1899; at Boston Art Museum, 1899 
and 1900; at Grand Central Galleries, New York, 1924. 

The young son of the celebrated American sculptor, Augustus Saint- 
Gaudens. A notably handsome example of the painter’s portraits of young 
people. This adorable boy, about ten years of age, sits on a carved wooden 
straight-backed chair, with his arms dropped in front of him and his 
hands loosely clasped together. The pose is of unstudied naturalness, and is 
peculiarly boyish, as witness the position of the legs and feet. At the left, 
and slightly withdrawn from the foreground, a sketch of his mother, who 
is bending over a book, from which she is presumably reading aloud. This 
sketch, we are told, was introduced as an impromptu. It was a happy 
thought. 

The charming portrait of Homer Saint-Gaudens and his mother... . 
He, a little boy, in a black suit, sits nonchalantly leaning against the high 
back of his chair as he listens to the book that his mother is reading out 
loud. The wide-open eyes of the boy show the intensity of his interest, yet 
their dilated concentration is shadowed by some unconscious realization of 
physical stir or change about him. Perhaps the curtain rustled, or there was 
a step on the stair, and this division of involuntary and voluntary attention 
has flashed out in swift response.—Margaret Breuning. 


SIGNOR ANTONIO MANCINI 

National Gallery of Modern Art, Rome 
Exhibited at Biennial Exposition, Rome, 1924. 
Sketch portrait, painted in 1894, at the Villa Wertheimer, near Rome, and 
presented to the National Gallery of Modern Art, Rome, by Mr. Sargent, 
in 1924. It was painted in a little more than an hour. Signed. Inscription 
in Italian at bottom of canvas. A conspicuous feature of the work is the 
sitter’s left hand with its long, tapering fingers holding a cigar. 
Not many people even know that he discovered the Italian painter Mancini 
and brought him to England . . . won him the patronage of one of his 
own best patrons, Mrs. Hunter. He sends many of his friends to Mancini, 


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CATALOGUE OF JOHN SINGER SARGENT 


and he tells everybody that he would be happy if he could paint half as 
well as the Italian.—Rebecca Insley. 


HENRY ST.JOHN SMITH 


Exhibited at Sargent loan exhibition, Copley Hall, Boston, 1899; at Boston 
Art Museum, 1916. 


A remarkably fine head of a young man, painted with strong contrasts of 
light and shadow, and subtly yet solidly modelled. 


ITALIAN WITH ROPE 


Animated and amusing sketch of the head and hands of a merry young 
bell ringer, with dark tousled hair, dark moustache, and dark eyes shining 
with animal spirits. 


The laugh of the young man pulling a rope is perfectly national. 
Alice Meynell. 


CAPRI GIRL 


Study in oil of an interesting head in profile. The type is that swarthy, 
dark-eyed, dark-haired type which Sargent understands so well and em- 
ploys so often in his Italian and Spanish genre pictures. 


EGYPTIANS IN BONDAGE 
Exhibited at Royal Academy, London, 1894. 


‘This was the lunette and a portion of the ceiling for the first section of the 
Boston Public Library decoration. 


PORTRAIT DEM. M.H. H. 
Exhibited at New Salon, Paris, 1894. 


THREE SKETCHES 
Exhibited at New English Art Club, London, 1894. 


A SKETCH 
Exhibited at New English Art Club, London, 1894. 


MISS ADA REHAN Collection of Mrs.G. M. Whitin 


Exhibited at Daly’s Theatre, New York, 1895; at National Academy of 
Design loan exhibition of portraits, New York, 1895; at New Gallery, 


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OIL PAINTINGS, STUDIES AND SKETCHES 


London, 1895; at Pennsylvania Academy, 1896; at loan exhibition of 
portraits, Copley Hall, Boston, 1896; at Sargent loan exhibition, Copley 
Hall, Boston, 1899; at Worcester Art Museum, 1914; at Boston Art 
Museum, 1915; at Corcoran Gallery, Washington, 1915; at Grand 
Central Galleries, New York, 1924. 
Full-length. The actress is depicted standing, in a low-necked white satin 
dress, facing the left, but turning her head and looking towards the ob- 
server. She carries an open fan of white feathers in her hand. ‘Tapestry 
background. 
In this portrait Mr. Sargent reveals himself more completely than in any 
of his recent works as a clever rather than a great artist. In the sweep of 
the lines and the quality of the color a certain cold verve takes the place of 
that sentiment and ardor without which no art is really great. 

Saturday Review. 
Mr. J. S. Sargent’s whole length, in white satin, of Miss Ada Rehan, has 
the merit of being a most excellent likeness, the figure naturally posed and 
freely painted. It is scarcely Mr. Sargent’s highest class work, but it is 
attractive, freely expressed, and is an adornment to the gallery. 


M. Phipps Jackson. 


W. GRAHAM ROBERTSON 

Exhibited at Royal Academy, 1895; at exhibition of the Société Nationale 
des Beaux-Arts, Paris, 1896. 

The full-length figure of a slender, delicate looking young man, in a long 
dark topcoat, and with an ivory-handled walking stick in his left hand. His 
right hand is placed on his hip, arm akimbo. A sleeping dog lies at his feet. 
This portrait is of the writer of the children’s play entitled “Pinkie and 
the Fairies,” and of many successful and popular juvenile books, illus- 
trated by himself. 

Mr. Sargent’s power of dragging the truth out of a man’s superficial per- 
sonality, for good or evil, is again magnificently displayed. . . . There 
he is, living, for you to admire, to wonder, or to laugh at—it is the man 


himself.—M. H. Spielmann. 


COVENTRY PATMORE National Portrait Gallery, London 
Exhibited at Royal Academy, London, 1895. 
Mr. Sargent takes at times a sudden view, and thus makes permanent too 
singly one aspect of an often altering face. It seems to be so, for example, 


173 


CATALOGUE OF JOHN SINGER SARGENT 


in the portrait of Coventry Patmore, in which that great poet’s vitality 
wears an aspect too plainly of mere warfare.—Alice Meynell. 
Undoubtedly the most electrifying portrait in the Academy—we nearly 
wrote the most masterly painting—is Mr. Sargent’s kitkat of Mr. Cov- 
entry Patmore. . . . The drawing of the face in Mr. Sargent’s picture, 
the brilliant rendering of the mouth, indeed, of the whole mask, are 
hardly to be matched in any other work of the year.—M. H. Spielmann. 
What can be more vitally present than the picture of Coventry Patmore? 
The color values . . . seem well sustained, the head in relation to the 
white of collar and waistcoat, as well as of the strong darks in cravat and 
coat and lesser dark of background; while the composition, the placing of 
the figure in this limited area so as to leave the impression of gauntness and 
slenderness is most intelligently conceived.—Frank Fowler. 


SKETCH OF COVENTRY PATMORE 
Museum of Occidental Art, Tokio 
Exhibited at Royal Academy, London, 1895; at Sargent loan exhibition, 
Boston, 1899. 
The sketch would be difficult to overpraise. More subtle in form and color 
and less assertive in manner than the finished picture, it is an admirable 
likeness and an astonishingly accomplished piece ef work. » 
Saturday Review. 


M. LEON DELAFOSSE 

Exhibited at Royal Academy, London, 1895; at Sargent loan exhibition, 
Boston, 1899; at the New Salon, Paris, 1902; at Royal Academy, London, 
1905. 

The eminent pianist, at three-quarters length, standing, nearly full front. 
A clear-eyed young man, with a candid and self-possessed look; his left 
hand, the slender fingers outspread, is placed against his hip, and is relieved 
against the dark coat. 


PORTRAIT DE MISSES XXX 
Exhibited at Paris Salon, 1895. 


THE DAUGHTER OF MRS. J. MONTGOMERY SEARS 
Exhibited at Sargent loan exhibition, Copley Hall, Boston, 1899; at Boston 


174 


OIL PAINTINGS, STUDIES AND SKETCHES 


Art Museum, 1905; at loan exhibition, Copley Hall, Boston, 1914; at 
Boston Art Museum, 1916. 

Full-length. The little girl, about five years of age, is dressed in white, and 
stands in the midst of a group of blue hydrangeas. The contrast fermed by 
these two tones makes a cool harmony, while the purity and freshness of 
the color and the crispness of the handling are noticeable. 


GARDINER G. HAMMOND 


Exhibited at Society of American Artists, New York, 1896; at Copley 
Hall, Boston, 1896 and 1899. 


MRS. ERNEST HILLS 
Exhibited at Royal Academy, London, 1895. 


PORTRAIT Jacob Wendell collection 
Exhibited at loan exhibition of portraits in aid of St. John’s Guild and the 
Orthopedic Hospital, National Academy of Design, New York, 1895. 


MRS. RUSSELL COOKE 
Exhibited at Royal Academy, London, 1895. 


RICHARD MORRIS HUNT 


Mrs. George W. Vanderbilt collection, Biltmore 
Distinguished American architect, brother of William Morris Hunt, the 
painter. He was the architect of Biltmore, the great Vanderbilt mansion in 
the style of the French castles, and the painting depicts him at full length, 
standing in the courtyard, with the lower portion of the famous spiral 
staircase, copied after the original in the Castle of Blois, in the background. 
He holds a long gray smock over his left shoulder, and his right hand is 
placed on the edge of a classical marble basin or well-head which occupies 
the left foreground. 


FREDERICK LAW OLMSTED 


Mrs. George W. Vanderbilt collection, Biltmore 
Distinguished American landscape architect, whose notable creations in- 
cluded many of the most beautiful public parks in the cities of the United 


175 


CATALOGUE OF JOHN SINGER SARGENT 


States. His work in connection with the laying out of the grounds of 
Biltmore is not one of the least of his titles to fame. 

The owner of Biltmore was happily inspired when he gave the commissions 
for these portraits of the distinguished men who created his beautiful estate, 
so that they might hang on his walls as memorials in time to come. . . . 
Mr. Olmsted’s poetic face is so faithfully and sympathetically interpreted 
that his most intimate friends have nothing but praise for the work. 


William A. Coffin. 


GEORGE W. VANDERBILT 

Mrs. George W. Vander bilt collection, Biltmore 
Exhibited at one hundred and twelfth exhibition Pennsylvania Academy, 
1917; at Corcoran Gallery, Washington, 1916-1917. 
Three-quarters length; standing. In the right hand he holds a closed book 
against his shoulder. 
Capitalist and late proprietor of the celebrated estate of Biltmore, near 
Asheville, N. C., a vast property of one hundred thousand acres of moun- 
tain land on the French Broad River. 


MRS. GEORGE W. VANDERBILT 
Mrs. George W. Vanderbilt collection, Biltmore 


PORTRAIT OF A LADY (MISS PRIESTLEY) 

Miss Emily Sargent’s collection 
Exhibited at the New English Art Club, 1896. 
A half-length portrait of a lady in a shot silk dress, a sort of red violet, 
the color known as puce. The face is pale, the chin is prominent and 
pointed. There were some Japanese characteristics in the sitter, and these 
have been emphasized. The eyes are long, and their look is distant; the 
eyebrows are high, arched and marked; the dark hair grows round the pale 
forehead with wiglike abruptness, and the painter has attempted no attenu- 
ation. The hands are placed upon the hips, the palms turned out. The back- 
ground is of a fine chocolate tone, which balances the various shades of the 
shot silk dress with a felicitous severity. I'wo red poppies are worn in the 
bodice. 
Gradually a pale-faced woman, with arched eyebrows, draws our eyes and 
fixes our thoughts. It is a portrait by Mr. Sargent, one of the best he has 


176 





MRS. ASHER WERTHEIMER 


Courtesy of the National Gallery, London 


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OIL PAINTINGS, STUDIES AND SKETCHES 


painted. By the side of a fine Hals it might look small and thin, but nothing 
short of a fine Hals would affect its real beauty. My admiration for Mr. 
Sargent has often hesitated, but this picture completely wins me. It has all 
the qualities of Mr. Sargent’s best work; and it has something more; it is 
painted with that measure of calculation and reserve which is present in all 
work of the first order of merit. . . . The rendering is full of the beauty 
of incomparable skill. . . . Mr. Sargent’s drawing speaks without hesita- 
tion a beautiful, decisive eloquence, the meaning never in excess of the 
expression, nor is the expression ever redundant. . . . The portrait tells 
us that he has learned the last and most difficult lesson—how to omit. . . . 
A beautiful work, certainly; I should call it a perfect work were it not that 
the drawing is a little too obvious; in places we can detect the manner; it 
does not coule de source like the drawing of the very great masters. 


George Moore. 


RIGHT HON. JOSEPH CHAMBERLAIN, M.P. 
Exhibited at Royal Academy, 1896. 
Three-quarters length; standing. He wears a dark frock coat with button- 
hole bouquet. The left arm and hand fall to his side; the right hand rests 
on a sheaf of papers on a desk. The alertness of the figure and the keenness 
of the face are well suggested; but the pose is rather conventional, and, as 
one of the critics puts it, the picture seems to have written across it, 
“portrait of a statesman.” 
An unusually fine example of the painter’s talent. His head of the Colonial 
Secretary leaves nothing to be desired.—M. P. J. in Magazine of Art. 
A difficult subject, susceptible of subtler treatment than he has bestowed on 
it. The picture is a striking example of the way in which an able and dash- 
ing painter can narrowly miss a considerable success.— The Athenaeum. 
Mr. Sargent has of late been struggling almost fiercely against any external 
aid from such allies as arrangement of light, quality of paint, and tone, and 
studied composition. . . . In his portrait of Mr. Chamberlain the lack of 
these qualities is to be regretted —Saturday Review. 


PORTRAIT OF A LADY 
Exhibited at Royal Academy, 1896. 


A graceful, simple, standing, three-quarters length figure, dressed in white 
and wearing a red cape. Brilliant and spirited in all its technical elements. 


177 


CATALOGUE OF JOHN SINGER SARGENT 


MRS. COLIN HUNTER 
Exhibited at Royal Academy, London, 1896. 


Wife of the well-known British marine painter. 


SIR GEORGE LEWIS 
Exhibited at Royal Academy, London, 1896. 


PAVEMENT OF ST. MARK’S 
Exhibited at Copley Hall, Boston, 1899. 
Sketch. 


MRS. CARL MEYER AND HER CHILDREN 


Exhibited at Royal Academy, London, 1897; at Sargent loan exhibition, 
Copley Hall, Boston, 1899; at Paris Universal Exposition, 1900. 
Mrs. Meyer, a young and pretty woman, of refined elegance, with hair 
tinged with gray, and blue eyes, is seated at the right, in the corner of a 
Louis XV sofa, the framework of which is gilt and the back covered with 
Aubusson tapestry. She is clad in an evening gown, with an overskirt of 
gleaming peach-blossom satin, with the underskirt of the same color cov- 
ered with lace, the waistband and shoulder bows of black silk. The corsage 
also is trimmed with lace, and the points of the little rose-pink slippers are 
visible below the edge of the skirt where the feet rest on a footstool. In the 
left hand she holds a fan, while the right rests on the back of the sofa and 
clasps the hand of her little son, who leans on the sofa, with his sister be- 
hind him looking over his shoulder. Both children are dark in type. The boy 
wears a suit of silver-gray velvet with sleeves of mauve velvet. The back- 
ground consists of a drawing-room with a flowered carpet and a wainscot 
of oaken panelling with rococo moldings. ‘The whole canvas is painted in 
light tints, and is one of the painter’s finest examples of virtuosity, the 
group having all of his ease, spontaneity and freshness of style in a supreme 
degree. 
A glittering tour de force. That is of the very essence of its period. The 
lady on her sofa, the two children behind her, seem almost to slide toward 
you from the decorative wall in the background. The whole affair is 
“posed” with an intentional elegance that only needed to be a little more 
strained to recall what is “smart” in Helleu or bizarre in Boldini. Only in 
“this portrait you are brought back to . . . Sargent’s imperial command 


178 


OIL PAINTINGS, STUDIES AND SKETCHES 


over his instruments. . . . There is only one word to explain technical 
powers like his, the word “genius.”—Royal Cortissoz. 

A capital and thoroughly modern piece is the life-size, whole-length, 
bright and brilliant portrait of Mrs. C. Meyer, which is Mr. J. S. Sargent’s 
masterpiece of the year; an excellent likeness and most charming as a © 
painting. Its strongest point perhaps is the treatment of the rich, pure and 
delicate bloom of the carnations.—T he Athenaeum. 

When he is happily inspired by a thoroughly congenial motive, like the 
group of Mrs. Meyer and her two children, the exquisiteness, delicacy, re- 
finement and loveliness of his work are unspeakably and unsurpassably 
great. It has the fragility and the complexion of a flower.—W. H. Downes. 


THE HON. LAURA LISTER 
Exhibited at Royal Academy, London, 1897; at the Sargent loan exhibi- 
tion, Copley Hall, Boston, 1899. 
Portrait of the five-year-old daughter of Lord Ribblesdale. The little maid, 
blonde-haired and blue-eyed, is represented at full length standing beside 
a pedestal on which is a large antique Etruscan jar of dull gray and green, 
and her figure is relieved against a background of rocks. The picture is in a 
sober gray color scheme. The girl’s right hand rests lightly on the edge of 
the pedestal. She is quaintly dressed in a full black satin skirt which reaches 
to the ground, with a white waist, ample white mull sleeves, and a mobcap 
with white lace and frills, which covers her curling hair. Her expression 
is at once delightfully demure and amusingly dignified. The pose is child- 
like and charming; and the execution is broad and simple. 
The Honorable Laura Lister has become, like Whistler’s ‘Miss Alexander,” 
a world favorite, to class with such masterpieces as Velasquez’s ‘“‘Princess 
Margaret.” . . . The shy sweetness with which she regards you out of her 
big eyes is inexpressibly winning.—Estelle M. Hurll. 
Among the pictures of children, the portrait of the Hon. Laura Lister 
takes its place with the most beautiful painted in all centuries since it was 
first held worth while to paint that childhood which the fathers and 
mothers of old were in haste to see securely past.—Alice Meynell. 


MRS. GEORGE SWINTON Art Institute of Chicago 


Exhibited at New Gallery, London, 1897; at ninety-first exhibition Royal 
Scottish Academy, Edinburgh, 1917; at Art Institute of Chicago, 1922. 


179 


CATALOGUE OF JOHN SINGER SARGENT 


Full-length; standing by a chair upholstered in silk of a shade somewhere 
beyond rose and orange. Beautiful in color, and exceedingly fine in draw- 
ing. Mrs Swinton, née E. Ebsworth, became the wife of the Hon. Captain 
George Swinton, one of the king’s heralds. She had been an opera singer. 
Canvas: 90 x 49 inches. 


Extract from a letter written by Mrs. Swinton: “The picture was painted 
in 1896-1897. It took a great many sittings, as we wasted a lot of time 
playing the piano and singing, instead of getting on with the picture. It 
was exhibited at the New Gallery, I think, in 1897.” 

One wonders if any one else would have painted the left arm—or rather 
left it out—with such a complete feeling of the solid structure beneath the 
loose scarf. . . . It is by these resources of the art of suggestion that the 
painter has made his canvas seem alive, as much as by the more definitely 
painted parts such as the face.—H. S. in The Spectator. 


It is a pyrotechnical display of great sweeping brush-strokes. There are 
blues, greens, pinks, lavenders—every tint of the pearl in its most glowing 
display of color, so often concealed, but in this case rapturously revealed. 


Rose V.S. Berry. 
MRS. GEORGE BATTEN, SINGING 
Exhibited at New Gallery, London, 1897; at New Salon, Paris, 1902. 


Half-length. The lady is shown in the act of singing a song, with her 
mouth wide open and her eyes closed. 


An example of the portrait of a moment that is full of spirit and action is 


that of Mrs. George Batten, which breathes the last note of a song—a song 
of Tosti’s, one might guess.—Alice Meynell. 


MR. AND MRS. I. N. PHELPS-STOKES 
Exhibited at New York, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, and Boston. 


Full-length; standing; the lady, a little in advance of her husband, is in a 
white linen summer dress and short black jacket with puffed shoulders; she 
holds a stiff straw hat against her right thigh. The effect of unusual height 
is enhanced by the arrangement of the figures with their elongated per- 
pendicular lines and the relatively narrow shape of the canvas. 


In the amusing picture of Mr. and Mrs. I. N. Phelps-Stokes, Mrs. Phelps’s 
starched white linen skirt, snug black belt, tightly fitting shirtwaist (it was 


180 


OIL PAINTINGS, STUDIES AND SKETCHES 


not a blouse then), and hard sailor hat held in the hand, give the earlier 
version of sports clothes. But the lovely face with its dark hair and smiling 
eyes can laugh at fashions past or present, triumphant in its own charm. 


Margaret Breuning in New York Evening Post. 


HENRY G. MARQUAND Metropolitan Museum, New York 


Three-quarters length. Mr. Marquand, second president of the Metropoli- 
tan Museum of Art, 1890—1902, is shown sitting by a table, in an attitude 
of repose, with his head resting lightly against his left hand. His right arm 
is over the back of the chair, the hand falling by his side; the figure and 
face are to the front, illumined by a strong light from the left. His dress is 
black, relieved against a gray ground and an olive-colored drapery. 
Gift of the trustees, 1897. Signed. Canvas: 3914 x 50) inches. 
It reveals a certain assertiveness in its utterance, an intensity of nervous 
force rather than of intellectual or sympathetic effort, a brilliant epitome 
rather than a profound study.—Charles H. Caffin. 
A performance of a very high order. . . . The color is swept in with 
much facility; the arrangement of tone is refined and reposeful; while the 
painting of the flesh is broad and certain, showing knowledge and equip- 
ment of a man who is thoroughly trained from the foundation upward. 
Arthur Hoeber. 
How well he has emphasized the facts of the spare figure, the thin, nervous 
hand, the refined if somewhat weary face! How very effective the placing 
of the figure in the chair, the turn of the head, and again that thin hand 


against which the head rests. Every physical feature is just as it should be. 
John C, Van Dyke. 


COUNTESS A. 
Exhibited at New Gallery, London, 1898; at Paris Salon of 1898. 


FRANCIS CRANMER PENROSE 
Exhibited at Royal Academy, London, 1898; at Sargent loan exhibition, 
Boston, 1899; at Venice, 1907. 
This gentleman was president of the Royal Institute of British Architects; 
author of a celebrated book on ““The Principles of Athenian Architecture” ; 
and he made the famous measurements of the Parthenon. The portrait de- 
picts an interesting type of scholarly character with candor and insight. 


181 


CATALOGUE OF JOHN SINGER SARGENT 


Everything about the work contributes to the revelation of a personality— 
the pose, the clothes, the hands, and the hair, all have their part in the 
evidence given, which is final. 

In its vigorous characterization, powerful and harmonious painting, and 
admirable breadth and force, it is quite admirable. As a likeness it is simply 
perfect, as the picture of such a sitter ought to be.—The Athenaeum. 

A thoughtful, reserved, and very quietly painted portrait of an elderly 
man. . . . It isa notable performance, simple, unaffected, and impressive, 
and different from any other portrait by Mr. Sargent that we remember. ~ 


William A. Coffin. 


LORD WATSON 
Exhibited at Royal Academy, London, 1898. 


Full-length figure standing with left hand resting on a sculptured oak 
pilaster and right hand holding a letter. Admirably satisfactory drawing, 
lighting, and sober coloring. 


ASHER WERTHEIMER Tate Gallery, London 
Exhibited at Royal Academy, London, 1898; at the New York portrait 
exhibition, 1898; at Sargent loan exhibition, Copley Hall, Boston, 1899; 
at Paris Universal Exposition, 1900. 

Painted to celebrate Mr. Wertheimer’s silver wedding anniversary in 
1898. A very celebrated canvas, portraying a well-known London picture 
dealer, with his shrewd, sagacious, canny personality, which is pictured in 
the most pungent and incisive manner. A remarkable realization of a pro- 
nounced type of character. 
The brilliancy of the rendering of Mr. Sargent’s sitter is a veritable tri- 
umph; the character so subtly caught, the lighting throughout so masterly, 
clear and free, the whole so well imagined, even to the poodle with his 
tongue lolling out, which tongue reveals almost as much dexterity in its 
drawing and color as is apparent in the face of its owner. 

Magazine of Art. 
A canvas so instinct with life that no criticism was able to withstand the 
shock. Silence is even now the most discreet praise for what is surely one of 
the great portraits of the world, the only modern picture which challenges 
the Doria Velasquez at Rome—Innocent X.—Robert Ross. 


Canvas: 57 X 37 inches. 


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OIL PAINTINGS, STUDIES AND SKETCHES 


MRS. ASHER WERTHEIMER 
Exhibited at Royal Academy, London, 1898. 
This portrait was evidently not considered entirely satisfactory, and the 
artist painted another and a much more successful portrait of Mrs. Wert- 
heimer, which was shown at the Royal Academy in 1904. The latter work, 
a pendant to the portrait of Mr. Wertheimer, is the one in the present group 
of the Wertheimer family portraits. 
Canvas: 62 x 40 inches. 
Must be admitted one of Mr. Sargent’s failures—a failure, at least, by 
comparison with the others. It lacks not only the character of the sitter but 
of the artist, and might have been executed by some other skilful and 
fashionable painter of our time.—Robert Ross. 


MRS. RALPH CURTIS 

Exhibited at Royal Academy, London, 1898; at Sargent loan exhibition, 
Copley Hall, Boston, 1899. 

Full-length; standing with her back turned to a round table, with the 
hands, the fingers turned under, resting upon it. The position is graceful, 
and the drawing is excellent. The figure seems extremely tall. ‘The color 
scheme is very cool; and, owing to the peculiar lighting, the painting of the 
head, neck and arms is lacking in luminosity. The ball gown worn by the 
lady is a close-fitting one of a sort of light steel gray, with pinkish tinges 
showing in the lights. This portrait, strong in its grasp of character, was a 
wedding present from Mr. Sargent to Mrs. Curtis. 


SIR THOMAS SUTHERLAND, G.C.M.G., M.P. 
Exhibited at Royal Academy, London, 1898. 
Three-quarters length; standing; full front. Costume of black frock coat, 
unbuttoned; dark waistcoat and trousers. The right hand holds a piece of 
paper, and the left hand is half thrust into the trousers pocket. The expres- 
sion of the eyes and mouth and puckered forehead is serious and somewhat 
interrogatory. 


JOHANNES WOLFF 
Exhibited at Royal Academy, London, 1898. 
A vigorous sketch portrait of the musician, holding his violin under his 
arm. Inscribed at top: “A mon ami Johannes Wolff.” Signed, and dated 
1897. 
183 


CATALOGUE OF JOHN SINGER SARGENT 


MRS. ANSTRUTHER THOMSON 
Exhibited at New Gallery, London, 1898. 


The fine quality of tone in the black dress has been noted by one of the art 
critics of the time. 


MRS. ERNEST FRANKLIN 
Exhibited at New Gallery, London, 1898. 


Three-quarters length; seated in an armchair, over the back of which a 
drapery has been thrown. The white dress is cut low and square at the neck, 
and the sleeves are half length. At the sitter’s right is a small round table 
or guéridon on which are two or three books. The attractive expression of 
the dark eyes is to be remarked. 


HON. CALVIN S. BRICE 


Painted in 1898; exhibited at New York portrait exhibition, 1898; at 
Sargent loan exhibition, Copley Hall, Boston, 1899; at Boston Art Club, 


1909. 


MRS. HAROLD WILSON 
Exhibited at Royal Academy, London, 1898. 


MR. ARTHUR COHEN 
Exhibited at New Gallery, London, 1898. 
Criticized with much severity by D. S. MacColl. 


MRS. THURSBY 

Exhibited at New Gallery, London, 1898. 

Life size; seated; wearing a violet dress, which is in one tone of pure color, 
but with an extraordinarily vivid play of light and shade. A pale blue cur- 
tain forms the background. 

The marked outcome of a distinct artistic individuality. . . . The portrait 
of Mrs. Thursby is pure impressionism. . . . The direct noting from 
nature, 4 permanent record of transient effects. ... Mr. J. Sargent is 
beyond comparison the greatest master of brushwork and of color-material 
now living. ‘Though the placing of a touch may sometimes seem a little 
forced, a little too artificially instantaneous, and though the attitude of his 
figures very often is one of unstable equilibrium, we cannot, on the other 


184 





GENERAL SIR IAN HAMILTON 


Hamilton Collection 


Reproduced from the photogravure by courtesy of William Heinemann, Ltd., London 





OIL PAINTINGS, STUDIES AND SKETCHES 


hand, too highly praise certain “condensed effects,” if I may say so, which 
are really quite marvellous.—Fernand Khnopff. 


MISS OCTAVIA HILL 
Exhibited at Royal Academy, London, 1899. 
Seated, with clasped hands, Miss Hill, in a dress of black, with full puffed 
sleeves and snowy white waist front and neck ruffle of tulle, looks to the 
left with an expression of placid amusement, as if her own meditations 
were agreeable company. Half-length. 
The painter’s magic reveals a face illuminated by an expression of gra- 
ciousness which only the painter’s art can arrest and fix. . . . This beau- 
tiful portrait of a woman by Mr. Sargent, so full of dignity, makes one 
regret very deeply that no portrait of the Queen has come from his brush. 
The Spectator. 
Mr. Sargent’s portrait of Miss Octavia Hill, whose genial and clever face 
is traced en bloc with a hand as firm as it is bold, is to be admired on those 
grounds, and also for its subject, which must have been delightful to a por- 
trait painter tired of the characterless expressions of commonplace sitters. 


The Athenaeum. 


GENERAL SIR IAN HAMILTON 
Exhibited at New Gallery, London, 1899; at the Fine Art Society’s exhi- 


bition of portraits of British commanders, London, 1915; at Venice inter- 
national exhibition, 1907. 

Three-quarters length. Figure full front, the head turned to the right, 
showing the profile. In full uniform, with top coat, which is thrown open, 
showing a row of medals and decorations on the left breast of the be- 
frogged tunic. Both hands are resting on the hilt of his sword. A mascu- 
line and rugged characterization of a thoroughly virile type of character. 
Every inch a soldier! 

General Sir Ian Hamilton’s military record in brief: Served in Afghan 
War, 1878-1880; in Boer War, 1881; Nile Expedition, 1884-1885; 
Burmese Expedition, 1886—1887,; Chitral relief force, 1895; Tirah cam- 
paign, 1897-1898; South Africa, 1890-1891 (was at Elandslaagte, the 
defence of Ladysmith, Diamond Hill, etc.); finally, he commanded the 
Mediterranean forces in 1915. Author of: “Icarus,” “A Jaunt in a Junk,” 
“Fighting of the Future,” “A Ballad of Hadji,” “A Staff Officer’s Scrap- 
Book,” “The Millennium,” and “Gallipoli Diary.” 


185 


CATALOGUE OF JOHN SINGER SARGENT 


The nervous energy of the sitter has seemingly stimulated the nervous 
energy of the painter. The tall, lithe, sinewy, alert figure of the officer 
springs tense from the gray background. His nervous hands almost twist 
on his sword-hilt. The contours of his head and face are eloquent with the 
quick intelligence and the sensitive vitality beneath. The execution matches 
and reveals this insight. Every stroke of the brush seems to fall with sim- 
plicity, surety, breadth and significance. 

H. T. P. in Boston Transcript. 


The portrait of General Jan Hamilton . . . is a masterpiece. We were 
confronted by austerity of truth instead of mere cleverness and brilliancy. 
He has seen deep into his subject, and absorbed not only its outward appear- 
ance but its inner life.-—Sadakichi Hartmann. 

As a rule a red uniform brings disaster upon a picture, but Mr. Sargent has 
made it a thing of beauty. This result has partly been achieved by reticence. 
A dark cloak hangs from the shoulders, leaving only a portion of the red 
showing. There is no subduing of the red itself; it is of the fullest and most 
splendid hue. But in enjoying the uniform we must not forget the soldier. 
The characterization of the head and hands is perfect, showing a sensitive 
organization combined with great vital energy.—The Spectator. 


HON. THOMAS BRACKETT REED 

Speaker’s Lobby, House Wing, Capitol, Washington 
Exhibited at Capitol, Washington, 1899; at Pennsylvania Academy, 1899; 
at Sargent loan exhibition, Copley Hall, Boston, 1899. 
Born, 1839; died, 1902. Member of Congress from Maine, 1877-1899; 
Speaker of the House of Representatives, 1889-1891, 1895-1899. 
All Sargent’s portraits of men are revelations of things seen and they are 
based on the physical presence. The Speaker Reed and the Mr. Chamber- 
lain are likenesses of men in the flesh, done apparently without a thought 
of their being statesmen. ‘There is nothing of the official about them, and 
you would not be able to say that they were political leaders. 

John C. Van Dyke. 


MRS. CHARLES HUNTER 


Exhibited at Sargent loan exhibition, Copley Hall, Boston, 1899; at Royal 
Academy, London, 1899. 


Mrs. Hunter is depicted at three-quarters length, with a large black hat 


186 


OIL PAINTINGS, STUDIES AND SKETCHES 


shading the upper part of her face, a ruffled cape thrown over her shoulders, 
and a low-cut corsage of scarlet covered with lace. The skirt is black, and 
the pervading tints in the cape are tan and a thin transparent black. The 
tan color is repeated in the feathers on the hat. The background is dark. A 
winning smile plays over the spirited and expressive features. 


Every line in the portrait is graceful and elegant, and the admirable paint- 
ing of the beautiful neck is worthy of special remark. . . . The whole 
forms a distinguished, individual, and strikingly beautiful effect. 

William A. Coffin. 


The masterly picture of Mrs. Charles Hunter, with its suggestion of re- 
finement and fresh air, courage, spirit, enterprise and wit, is subtly English. 


Alice Meynell. 


Some afterthought—admiration, perhaps, or the idea of a picture—has 
clouded his terrible eye in the portrait of Mrs. Charles Hunter. 
D. S. M. in the Saturday Review. 


MISS JANE EVANS 
Exhibited at Royal Academy, London, 1899. 
Vivacity in portraiture has probably never been so completely obtained in 
modern times. . . . The veracity is startling, and the handling brilliant 
amongst the most dashing bravura passages ever executed; and yet there is 
a lack of repose . . . which alone makes a picture delightful to live with. 
Magazine of Art. 


LADY FAUDEL-PHILLIPS 

Exhibited at Royal Academy, London, 1899. 

A portrait @ apparat. Three-quarters length, full front; seated in an arm- 
chair, with the right arm resting on a cushion, and a pet dog in her lap. 
Dark silk dress, décolleté, with short sleeves, and much jewelry. The lady’s 
white hair is surmounted by an elaborate feather ornament. A curtain in 
the background. 

In “‘Lady Faudel-Phillips,” bravura is used with the power of a satire by 
Pope. Hard, merciless wit, without caricature, is the general impression 


produced by this picture.—H. S. in The Spectator. 


MISS HORNER 
This portrait of a young girl is deftly brushed in with broad, swift, con- 
fident handling. The method employed might almost be called steno- 


187 


CATALOGUE OF JOHN SINGER SARGENT 


graphic. No colors, except white, pale gray, and flesh tints, with the golden 
brown of the hair and a mere suggestion of a light rose-pink sash. It ap- 
pears probable that the head was painted at a single sitting; at any rate, it 
is a remarkable tour de force, and the color is beautiful. Inscribed. 


MISS ANSTRUTHER THOMSON 

Exhibited at Detroit Institute of Art, 1922; at Toledo Museum of Art, 
1922; at Corcoran Gallery, Washington, 1923-1924; at Cincinnati, 
1924. 

Canvas: 26 x 32.inches. A portrait of a young girl in white. She appears to 
be about sixteen years of age. It shows her seated with her back to a window, 
in the glass of which her head and the upper part of her figure are dimly 
reflected. The white window casing forms a vertical line extending from 
the top of her head to the upper edge of the canvas, a somewhat disturbing 
line. Inscribed at upper right-hand corner, “To Miss Anstruther Thom- 
son,” and signed. 


MRS. J. MONTGOMERY SEARS 

Exhibited at Boston Art Museum, 1905. 

Three-quarters length; full front face; seated in an armchair; in a dress 
of white satin with mull at neck; holding a bouquet of pink and white 
carnations in left hand. The right elbow rests on the chair back and the 
hand is held to the sitter’s cheek, two of her fingers being pressed lightly 
against the cheek. A gold pendant set with ruby and pearl hangs from a 
slender gold neck chain. At left background in shadow are silver and 
porcelain objects on a stand. 


LADY ELCHO, MRS. TENNANT, AND MRS. ADEANE 
[ “THE THREE GRACES’ | 

Exhibited at Royal Academy, London, 1900; at Franco-British exhibi- 
tion, 1908; at Royal Scottish Academy, Edinburgh, 1911. 

The arrangement of the group of these three sisters, daughters of the Hon. 
Percy Wyndham, is unusual, and not entirely devoid of a hint of artifice. 
If the purpose was to obtain an effect of casual grouping, as appears prob- 
able, it can hardly be regarded as altogether successful. The cool color 
scheme, however, is highly interesting. The dresses, all of white materials, 
are opposed to sofa cushions of pale blue-greens and warm creamy and 


188 


OIL PAINTINGS, STUDIES AND SKETCHES 


rosy tones, while among the accessories very agreeable accents are provided 
by the peonies and other flowers with their dark green leaves, and the 
bluish-gray wall in shadow, relieved by the gold of picture frames. The 
lighting, too, is well managed, the light falling diagonally across the room 
so as to brighten the dull gilt frames of. the pictures on the wall and to 
illumine the faces as well as to vary the tones of the costumes. 

The greatest performance, from the point of pure art, is Mr. Sargent’s 
astonishing group portrait. We are inclined to say that it is the greatest 
picture that has appeared for many years on the walls of the Royal 
Academy.—London Times. 

Mr. Sargent’s portrait of three ladies is one of those truces in the fight 
where beauty has unquestionably slipped in. . . . This picture has the 
initial persuading and welcoming appeal to the eye that springs from gen- 
eral design and harmony.—D. S. M. in Saturday Review. 

These figures all have the breath of life, for the blood is pulsating to the 
fingers’ tips; and character goes with the vitality, for with subtle power the 
faces reveal refinement of nature, high-bred distinction of manner, and 
individual peculiarities and traits —I. N. F. in New York Tribune. 

The picture is very large, and the artist has risen to the occasion and avoided 
minor fascinations and subtleties; choosing rather to be impressive than 
clever. . . . Never has Mr. Sargent produced a finer harmony of color, 
and yet there is very little positive color anywhere. Rich though indefinite 
hues melt into one another. . . . This noble piece of portraiture has ad- 
mirable qualities of characterization. The figures are instinct with individ- 
ual life, the faces are animated without spoiling the harmony of the general 
effect, and the central figure is of great beauty.—H. S. in The Spectator. 


INTERIOR OF A PALAZZO IN VENICE 
Burlington House, London 
Exhibited at Royal Academy, London, 1900. 

Diploma work. A notably interesting and elegant motive, executed with 
consummate artistic mastery. It represents a sumptuous drawing-room in an 
old palace—the grand sala of the Palazzo Barbaro in Venice—occupied 
at the time by an American family, the Curtises of Boston. In the fore- 
ground, at the right, near a window, an elderly couple, seated. The man, 
seen in profile, is turning the leaves of a folio volume which he has propped 
up in a chair in front of him. In the background, at the left, a younger 


189 


CATALOGUE OF JOHN SINGER SARGENT 


couple, near a tea-table; the lady holds a cup of tea in her hand, the tall 
young gentleman talking to her is half sitting and half leaning on the edge 
of the table. Details of magnificent chandeliers and lamps, paintings and 
mirrors in elaborately carved and gilded frames, with fine antique fur- 
niture. 


What an honest, infallible grasp of aspect, the confused aspect of the half- 
seen thing as exactly rendered as that of the fully illuminated! Dark, 
shapeless smudges reveal themselves at the right distance as cherubs and 
festoons in the decoration of the ceiling. . . . In what a limpid, brilliant 
air this picture lives . . . no violence in the pictures round can force the 
life out of its silvery tones and change them to mere paint. 


D.S. M. in Saturday Review. 


Very able, homogeneous, full-toned and solid. . . . It is his diploma work, 
and was evidently intended as a study for the arrangement of a group of 
modern portraits at life-size and full-length figures in a seventeenth- 
century palace in Venice. All the elements of a fine picture are here com- 
bined with rare art and consummate power.—The Athenaeum. 


The great rococo room of a Venetian palace occupied by ordinary modern 
people is painted with a finish and feeling of space that is little less than 
marvelous. The quiet, unobtrusive way in which the objects emerge from 
the dimness of the spacious room and take their places with exact rightness 
is indeed a lesson in painting.—H. S. in The Spectator. 


EARL OF DALHOUSIE 
Exhibited at Royal Academy, London, 1900. 


Arthur George Maule Ramsay, D.L., Baron Ramsay, Lord Ramsay, four- 
teenth Earl of Dalhousie, Governor-General of India. Three-quarters 
length; in a white costume; standing in front of a classic column on the 
base of which he rests his left arm; the other arm is akimbo; the pose being 
very easy and natural. The head is knowingly drawn and characterized. 
The success of the realism is complete; only a real master could have suc- 
ceeded in making the young face look perfectly right with the sunburn 
ending in a diagonal line across the forehead.—T he Spectator. 


The necktie, the sunburn, all that caught the eye first, was a disagreeable 
challenge, and recognition of the lithe, sharp drawing and nailing char- 
acterization was an afterthought.—Saturday Review. 


190 


OIL PAINTINGS, STUDIES AND SKETCHES 


LORD RUSSELL OF KILLOWEN 
Exhibited at Royal Academy, London, 1900. 
Charles Russell, first Lord Russell of Killowen, eminent British jurist; 
M.P., 1880; Attorney-General, 1886; Lord Chief Justice of England, 
1894-1900. 
Half-length; seated; dressed in the robes of his great office as Lord Chief 
Justice. The full black draperies, largely and freely felt, set off by the 
clear white tones of the collar and the square-edged dangling ends of the 
crisply starched linen cravat. In the head, the massive, solid, virile head of 
a man of intellect and judicial character, there is a more distinct remi- 
niscence of Sir Henry Raeburn’s manner than is to be observed usually in 
Sargent’s portraits of men. 


LORD RUSSELL OF KILLOWEN 
Exhibited at Royal Academy, London, 1900. 
There were two portraits of Lord Russell in the Royal Academy of 1900, 
according to Algernon Graves’s ‘“The Royal Academy Exhibitors, 1796- 
1904.” 


SIR DAVID RICHMOND Glasgow Art Gallery and Museum 
Exhibited at Royal Academy, London, 1900. 
Lord Provost of Glasgow, and Lord-Lieutenant of County and City of 
Glasgow, 1896-1899. Full-length, life-size, erect, in Lord-Lieutenant’s 
uniform, over which is worn the Lord Provost’s robe, with chain of office 
around neck. Painted for the Corporation. Signed. 
Canvas: 8 feet x 4 feet 5 inches. 


HON. VICTORIA STANLEY 

Exhibited at New Gallery, London, 1900. 
Full-length; standing; this ingenuous little maiden wears a white dress, 
red coat, and Scotch cap adorned with two feathers. She carries in both 
hands a riding-crop. Her long hair falls in curls over her shoulders. The 
pose is a bit formal for so young a girl, but the equilibrium of the figure is 
so complete as to give an impression of ease. 
Incomparable in its astounding vitality and splendid decision. 

Magazine of Art. 


191 


CATALOGUE OF JOHN SINGER SARGENT 


A rather savage Sargent. Imagine a portrait of Little Red Riding Hood by 
the Wolf.—D. S. M. in Saturday Review. 


The color of the portrait is singularly harmonious and rich, and the feeling 
that the figure has thickness as well as height and breadth perfect. 


H.S. in The Spectator. 


MISS M. CAREY THOMAS Bryn Mawr College 


Exhibited at Paris Universal Exposition of 1900; at loan exhibition of 
portraits of fair women, Copley Hall, Boston, 1901; at Roman art exhi- 
bition, 1911; at Corcoran Gallery, Washington, 1907. 


President of Bryn Mawr College. This is one of Sargent’s soberest works, 
evidently with deliberate intention kept simple and somewhat severe. ‘The 
head is most interesting for its reading of character, and is painted with 
much sympathy. The intelligence and sensibility of the sitter, her look of 
firmness and energy tempered by gentleness and amiability, are brought out 
with remarkable success. 


GENERAL SIR IAN HAMILTON 
Exhibited at New Gallery, London, 1900. 


In the fine three-quarters length portrait of General Hamilton (1899) the 
profile was seen, whereas in this portrait we have a bust-length showing the 
front face view. The present work is rather more summary in manner, but 
it has much of the same look of life and alertness. The head is admirably 
constructed, but the shadow on the right side of the face is a little heavy. 
The uniform and background are sketchily indicated. 


A distinguished example of vigor and an entirely individualized style. 


The Athenaeum. 


Not only superb characterization, but as well rare beauty of subdued and 
subtly harmonized color.—Magazine of Art. 


The characterization of the head, seen full face, is conspicuously fine, and 
the color beautiful.—H. S. in The Spectator. 


Excursions round about the officer’s portrait steadily increase one’s admi- 
ration. . . . See how those patches in which the flesh turns grayer are not 
separated out as bits of green or yellow, but just vary, in its flow, the pre- 
vailing tint, as they do in nature, and are subdued by the big changes due to 
the impact of light.—D. S. M. in Saturday Review. 


192 





IND ERIORS OR VASPALGAZZOSING VENICE 


[ Venetian Interior ] 


Courtesy of the Royal Academy, Burlington House, London, and William Heinemann, Lid., London 


NS 


es 





OIL PAINTINGS, STUDIES AND SKETCHES 


THE MISSES WERTHEIMER Tate Gallery, London 
Exhibited at Royal Academy, London, 1901; at New Salon, Paris, 1902, 
under the title of “Portrait de deux sceurs.” 

The two sisters are shown at nearly full length, standing side by side in a 
full, clear light, in a richly furnished interior. Fhe elder and taller one, in 
white silk, has her arm about the waist of the younger and shorter one, who 
is dressed in a dark red velvet. In the background, a very handsome, large 
porcelain jar, several oil paintings on the wall, etc. The open fan held by 
one of the young ladies is a marvel of foreshortening. The vitality of the 
two sisters is extraordinary, and the vivid revelation of racial traits in their 
features is not less so. 
A marvellous tour de force of execution. The artist seems to have felt that 
it was expected of him that he should astonish, and he has done so. 
The Spectator. 

This is in its way a masterpiece. The poses are full of spontaneity and verve, 
and the contrast between the leaning figure of the younger girl and the 
almost exaggerated robustness of her sister is entirely felicitous. 

The Athenaeum. 
I should say that rarely in the history of painting have its engines discharged 
a portrait so emphatically, so undistractedly contrived. The woman is there, 
with a vitality hardly matched since Rubens, the race, the social type, the 
person.—D. S. M. in Saturday Review. 
The two daughters of Mr. and Mrs. Wertheimer shown in this remarkable 
picture are Ena and Betty. The former became Mrs. Robert M. Mathias, 
and the latter Mrs. Euston A. Salaman. Separate likenesses of both were 
also painted by Sargent. 
Canvas: 73 x 51 inches. 


MME. PAUL ESCUDIER Charles Deering collection 
Exhibited at Paris Salon, 
tion, Pittsburgh, 1923. 
Full-length. Mme. Escudier is depicted standing near a window through 
which a strong light falls on the left side of her face and figure. She wears 
a dark silk dress with V-shaped corsage, half-length sleeves, and train. Her 
hands are clasped together, and her head is slightly tilted to one side. 





; at Carnegie Institute international exhibi- 


One cannot look at it without thinking of Alfred Stevens, yet even the 
great Belgian could hardly excel it in fluency —Art and Archaeology. 


193 


CATALOGUE OF JOHN SINGER SARGENT 


HON. MRS. CHARLES RUSSELL 
Exhibited at Royal Academy, London, 1901. 


Half-length. The lady, in pale rose color and white, is standing, with her 
face in shadow, and leaning against a carved cabinet on which she has 
placed her elbows, close to a beautifully painted silver lamp. In this pose 
there is a felicitous fluency. Much character is expressed in the nervous 
face, the long, slim neck, and the sensitive hands. Eyes and mouth are 
rather sad. The subtle way in which the hair merges into the background is 
a fine touch. The canvas has pictorial unity and reserve. 


Though low in tone, and in parts not in the painter’s happiest color, it 
speaks to us in a truer note. . . . What he tells us of this pathetic face is 
very interesting and very sad.— Magazine of Art. 


SIR CHARLES TENNANT, OF THE GLEN, BART. 
Exhibited at Royal Academy, London, 1go1. 


The sitter was one of the most noted Scots of the nineteenth century, a 
pioneer and leader of industry, an active politician, and a great figure in 
social life. Among his numerous children were Edward Tennant, M.P. 
for Salisbury; Harold John Tennant, M.P. for Berwickshire; Lady Rib- 
blesdale, Mrs. Margot Asquith, and the late Mrs. Alfred Lyttleton. The 
mansion of The Glen, in Peebleshire, was for two generations the home 
of this remarkable family of singularly varied interests and gifts; and as 
the meeting place of men and women distinguished in all walks of life— 
social, political, literary, and artistic—was one of the most famous country 
houses in Great Britain. 


MRS. GARRETT ANDERSON, M.D. 
Exhibited at New Gallery, London, 1901. 


A portrait which holds a high place for the almost startling vividness of the 
likeness. Full of character and spirited expression. The head is modelled 
with consummate skill; the bright eyes are noticeable; the hands finely 
characterized. The black silk gown is also a superbly painted bit. 


The furioso method and temperament of the painter has shown the lady 
violently aggressive and totally unsympathetic, which we well know must 
belie the charm of the sitter —Magazine of Art. 


194 


OIL PAINTINGS, STUDIES AND SKETCHES 


C. S. LOCH, ESQ. 
Exhibited at Royal Academy, London, 1901. 


Half-length. Low in tone. The arms are folded. There are no sharp con- 
trasts. The personality of the sitter is revealed with convincing fidelity and 
supreme vitality. 


MRS. CAZALET AND CHILDREN 
Exhibited at Royal Academy, London, 1go1. 
A large and sumptuous picture, faintly suggestive of Sir Thomas Law- 
rence, but full of original invention. The lady is beautiful, and she is 
beautifully rendered. Among the accessories are a chair upholstered in 
velvet and a great red curtain in the background, which is novel in ar- 
rangement. 
It is very wonderful, and perhaps no one else could have done it, but at the 
same time it leaves one cold.—T he Spectator. 
The children, excellently as they are painted, are not the most successful of 
Mr. Sargent’s brilliant creations.— Magazine of Art. 


SIR GEORGE SITWELL, LADY IDA SITWELL, AND FAMILY 
Exhibited at Royal Academy, London, 1gor. 


A group of standing figures, painted in the sharp perspective of objects seen 
near at hand. ‘The head of Sir George Sitwell is an especially fine piece of 
work. In the background are a cabinet and some tapestry. Sir George is in 
hunting costume; his wife is wearing an evening gown; the two children 
are playing on the floor. The luxuriously appointed room with its tapestries 
and ornaments is depicted in a most interesting manner. 


INGRAM BYWATER, ESQ. 
Exhibited at Royal Academy, London, 1901. 
The sitter is Regius Professor of Greek in the University of Oxford. 


DUKE OF PORTLAND 
Exhibited at New Gallery, London, 1901. 


Full-length. In walking costume of short coat, breeches and leggings. 
Carrying a walking stick and cap under his right arm. ‘Two collie dogs, one 
lying down at left, the other standing up at right of his master, who holds 


195 


CATALOGUE OF JOHN SINGER SARGENT 


his muzzle in his left hand, while the dog looks up with the expression that 
seems to say, “I am all ready; come along; let’s go.” 


William John Arthur Charles James Cavendish-Bentinck, K.G., P.C., 
G.C.V.O., D.L., J.P., Earl of Portland, Viscount Woodstock, Baron of 
Cirencester, Marquis of Titchfield, Baron Bolsever. Master of the Horse; 
Lord-Lieutenant of Caithness; Lord-Lieutenant of Nottingham; Lieuten- 
ant in Coldstream Guards; Hon. Colonel Fourth Battalion Sherwood For- 
esters; family trustee of British Museum; Provincial Master Notts. Free- 
masons, etc. 


Residences: Welbeck Abbey, Worksop; Fullarton House, Ayrshire; Castle 
Cessnock, Galston, Ayrshire; Langwell, Berriedale, Caithness-shire. 


Characteristic as to pose, arrangement and execution; all proclaim the work 
of a master.— Magazine of Art. 


We shall gain nothing of more importance than the most superficial 
observer would discover on a formal introduction to his lordship—less, 
indeed, for all the while we have been deafened by the fizz and crackle of 
Mr. Sargent’s brushwork.—T he Athenaeum. 


DUCHESS OF PORTLAND 
Exhibited at Royal Academy, London, 1902. 


This is a pendant to the portrait of the Duke of Portland, both canvases 
being unusually high in comparison with their width. Full-length; stand- 
ing; full front. In evening dress of white satin, cut low at neck, with a 
red cloak, thrown open, and wide, flaring Elizabethan collar of wonderful 
old lace; ropes of pearls at waist line and bust. The color scheme is par- 
ticularly rich; the cérise red of the cloak coming into contrast with the 
greenish-white of the fluted Ionic pair of marble columns supporting one 
end of the lofty sculptured mantelpiece in the background. The duchess is 
a tall and slender young woman, with curly dark hair and steady dark eyes. 
The head and hands are very handsomely treated, with suavity and clear- 
ness of drawing. The pose is graceful as well as dignified. 


VISCOUNTESS ACHESON 


Exhibited at International Society of Sculptors, Painters and Gravers, 
Grosvenor Gallery, London, 1918. 


196 


OIL PAINTINGS, STUDIES AND SKETCHES 


THE MISSES HUNTER 
Mr. and Mrs. Charles Hunter, Darlington, Hants 


Exhibited at Royal Academy, London, 1902; at New Salon, Paris, 1903; 
at Louisiana Purchase Exposition, St. Louis, 1904; at Pennsylvania Acad- 
emy, 1904; at Society of American Artists, New York, 1904. 


A large group portrait of three sisters. Disregarding one of the old tradi- 
tions of the portraitist, that the figures in a group should face towards each 
other with the heads near together, the painter has here placed his sitters on 
a circular divan with their backs turned towards each other and facing 
towards the sides of the frame. In this as in other groups Sargent has at- 
tempted to avoid the conventional and formal design, and to give the 
impression of a casual and informal composition. In ashadowy interior. One 
of the ladies wears a gown of creamy white, and the other two are in black 
silk, relieved by slight touches of white. A small dog lies at the feet of one 
of the sitters. 


The arrangement of the “Misses Hunter” is an ingenious but rather luck- 
less idea. Those seats that turn three ways are uncomfortable, over- 
ingenious things in themselves.—Saturday Review. 


There is the sense of artifice and effort, of lines teased into relations to one 
another which, when he is himself, Mr. Sargent never discloses. ‘The 
trouble, I take it, is that he is groping through the intricacies of a formula, 
a thing foreign to his genius, and, what is more, foreign to his time. 

Royal Cortissoz. 


The “Misses Hunter” is one of those presentations in which Mr. Sargent 
utilizes the resources of furniture to tie together, as it were, the figures of 
his canvas into a compact composition, but with such judgment that the 
personages appear to have happened quite naturally or quite by chance in 
their respective places in the scene; for scene it sometimes is when three 
sisters on this cushioned circular seat sit talking over the little nothings or 
somethings of the season.—F rank Fowler. 


Taken as a whole, the picture is a noble example of matured knowledge 
and of skill and feeling balanced. It surely will hold its own among the 
artist’s masterpieces, for it combines the intimate charm of Reynolds’s 
“Three Ladies Waldegrave,” with a freer scope of individual vision and 
technique.—Charles H. Caffin. 


197 


CATALOGUE OF JOHN SINGER SARGENT 


THE YOUNGER CHILDREN OF ASHER WERTHEIMER 
Tate Gallery, London 
Exhibited at New Gallery, London, 1902. 


A group of three figures, two girls and a boy, with a trio of pet poodle 
dogs. Composition of felicitous informality. The elder girl is sitting on a 
couch, with one of the dogs asleep in her lap. The younger girl, seated a 
little lower, holds another small dog in both of her hands as he sits up 
nicely for his likeness. The boy, in an Eton jacket, is sitting on the floor; 
and the third dog, at the left of the group, lying on the floor, is a remark- 
able model of canine absurdity. The terrestrial globe in the background, 
at the left, perhaps indicates that the scene is in the schoolroom of the 
Wertheimer villa. 


The moral atmosphere of an opulent and exotic society has been seized and 
put before us.— The Spectator. 


The Wertheimer children in their schoolroom, where the freedom from 
study hours has permitted the admission of household pets. The natural- 
ness of such a moment with its privileges, seems most truthful and un- 
studied, and in its domestic theme is of the tradition of Velasquez’s “Las 
Meninas.”—F rank Fowler. ; 

These three younger children of Mr. and Mrs. Wertheimer are Essie, 
Ruby, and Ferdinand. Essie became Mrs. E. H. Wilding. 

Canvas: 62 x 75 inches. 


ALFRED WERTHEIMER Tate Gallery, London 
Exhibited at Royal Academy, London, 1902. 


Three-quarters length; facing three-quarters to the left. A young man of 
twenty-five, wearing a dark coat and buff waistcoat. He stands with his 
left hand resting on a heap of books which lie on a table; in his right hand 
is a newspaper. On the wall are two or three retorts, indicating the nature 
of his studies. ‘The anatomy of the head is indicated with telling accuracy 
of modelling. The subject of this very fine likeness died in South Africa 
the same year that the portrait was painted. 


I know of no portrait in ancient or modern art with which to compare this 
superb picture, unless it be the lovely head which used to be called 
Menephtah, in the Boulaq Museum at Cairo—Robert Ross. 


The portrait of Alfred Wertheimer shows a young man in the fullness of 


198 


OIL PAINTINGS, STUDIES AND SKETCHES 


a rich and ripe vitality, so lighted as to offer the best relief to the plastic 
planes of this broadly modelled and virile head.—F rank Fowler. 


Canvas: 63 x 38% inches. 


EDWARD WERTHEIMER Tate Gallery, London 


This portrait of the late Edward Wertheimer was sketched in Paris, in 
1902, the year of his untimely death. 


Canvas: 63 x 38 “inches. 


BETTY WERTHEIMER Tate Gallery, London 


Oval. Three-quarters length; seated; the face turned to her left. A beau- 
tiful face, with full lips, long, straight nose, keen dark eyes, and deli- 
cately marked, symmetrical eyebrows, all framed by a wondrous mass of 
thick black hair. The head is sharply relieved against the sky and is set 
between the plinth of a stone column at the right and a huge marble urn 
at the left, on a massive balustrade, at the Villa Wertheimer. The dress is a 
marvel of elegance, low-necked, with elbow-length puffed sleeves, and a 
very full skirt. The background of sky and architecture is decoratively 
treated. Graceful and charming in features, figure, expression and pose, 
this young woman’s portrait recalls the style of Sir Thomas Lawrence, but 
it is distinctly superior to the work of that painter in the suggestion of 
intense vitality. 

An exquisite painting with something of Lawrence in its conception and 
gaiety of color.—Robert Ross. 


Canvas: 48 x 37 inches. 


ALNA WERTHEIMER Tate Gallery, London 


This portrait, one of the celebrated series of Wertheimer family portraits, 
is at three-quarters length; seated; the face full front; the lips parted in a 
half-smile; a happy light in the handsome eyes. The young lady is in 
Persian costume, and is holding a lute. The gorgeous Oriental garb, a 
notable part of which is the immense plumed headdress with its ropes of 
pearls, does not seem misplaced on this spirited and vivid creature. The 
work is superlative in its splendor of color and of vitality. 

She reigns alone, a youthful sovereign among subjects.—Robert Ross. 


Canvas: 51 x 3714 inches. 
199 


CATALOGUE OF JOHN SINGER SARGENT 


HYLDA WERTHEIMER Tate Gallery, London 


One of the series of Wertheimer family portraits. Hylda Wertheimer be- 
came Mrs. H. Wilson Young. 


Canvas: 82x55 inches. 


CONWAY, ALNA AND HYLDA WERTHEIMER 


Tate Gallery, London 
One of the series of Wertheimer family portraits. 
Canvas: 73x 514 inches. 
LORD RIBBLESDALE Tate Gallery, London 


Exhibited at Royal Academy, London, 1902; at Venice international ex- 
hibition, 1907. 

Thomas Lister, P.C., J.P., fourth Baron. Sub-Lieutenant 64th Regiment; 
Lieutenant Rifle Brigade; Major; Lord-in-Waiting; Master of Buck- 
hounds, etc. Residence: Gisburne Park, near Clitheroe. 


His first wife was a daughter of Sir Charles Tennant; and his second wife 
was a daughter of Mr. Willing of Philadelphia and the widow of John 
Jacob Astor. 

Lord Ribblesdale is the author of ‘“The Queen’s Hounds and Stag-Hunt- 
ing Recollections.” He is represented at full length, in hunting costume, 
holding a whip in one hand. The portrait is generally considered one of 
Sargent’s most notable likenesses of men, and when shown at Venice in 
1907 it was praised by King Victor Emmanuel, who called it a masterpiece. 
One hardly knows whether face or figure is more expressive of the poise of 
life—the unstable equilibrium by which a man is thus admirably erect, so 


that nothing stable and secure seems so upright, and nothing in flight more 
full of life—Alice Meynell. 


Mr. Sargent’s most masterly portrait of the year is Lord Ribblesdale in long 
riding coat and top hat, standing against a fluted marble pilaster. As a pic- 
torial presence, firmly and sympathetically knit, complete and unmannered, 
he dominates the central gallery— The Art Journal. 


MRS. WILLIAM C. ENDICOTT 


Exhibited at Royal Academy, London, 1902; at Boston Art Museum, 
1903, 1915 and 1916; at loan exhibition of portraits, Copley Hall, 


200 


: 
; 
e. 
& 
3 
= 
$ 





THE TWO ELDER DAUGHTERS OF 
ASHER WER THEMIMER, Es: 


Courtesy of the National Gallery, London, and William Heinemann, Ltd., London 





. 


OIL PAINTINGS, STUDIES AND SKETCHES 


Boston, 1914; at Grand Central Galleries, New York, 1924. 

Nearly full-length; seated; dark costume set off by white lace at throat and 
wrists. Dull crimson curtain in background. 

This presentment of a very interesting personality, of great distinction and 
nobility of mien, interesting also as a type, is quite on a par with Van Dyck. 
Very much depends on whether Sargent finds himself in a congenial 
rapport with his sitter, as is well known; and here he was evidently in com- 
plete sympathy with his subject. It may be doubted whether he has ever 
painted a better head than that of Mrs. Endicott. The color scheme is 
sober—a black dress, with white lace collar, and a dull crimson curtain for 
background. There is nothing showy or “clever,” nothing for effect, but 
everything is just and sound and genuine. In the painting of the lace, for 
instance, there is that golden mean of knowing synthesis, of suggestive 
breadth of workmanship, which gives the object its due importance and no 
more and no less. As a study of individual character and a masterly ren- 
dering of a fine type, it is unsurpassable. Sargent has probably painted more 
brilliant things, more striking things, but he has never made a more sterling 
portrait.—Boston Transcript. 


WILLIAM C. ENDICOTT, JR. 
Exhibited at twenty-second exhibition of paintings by contemporary Ameri- 
can artists, Corcoran Gallery, Washington, 1908-1909; at Boston Art 
Museum, 1915 and 1916. 


MRS. WILLIAM C. ENDICOTT, JR. 
Exhibited at Boston Art Museum, 1903, 1904, 1915, 1916; at second 
exhibition of paintings by contemporary American artists, Corcoran Gal- 
lery, Washington, 1908-1909. 


ON HIS HOLIDAYS, NORWAY McCulloch collection 
[SALMON FISHING IN NORWAY] 
Exhibited at New Gallery, London, 1902; at fifty-seventh exhibition 
Royal Glasgow Institute of the Fine Arts, 1918. 
A picture of a young boy lying on the brink of a swift mountain stream 
whose blue-green waters swirl and eddy among gray rocks. The boy is 
resting, with some caught salmon and tackle beside him on the ground, 
making the central feature of a well-painted piece of landscape. 


201 


CATALOGUE OF JOHN SINGER SARGENT 


This picture has a special fascination as a record of silvery daylight. It is 
magnificently broad and simple in handling, and is amazingly true in its 
rendering of open-air tones.—Magazine of Art. 


The freedom of life out of doors and the joy of existence by those sound- 
ing waters are fixed and made permanent. . . . The figure in this picture 
is both beautiful in itself and in perfect accord with its surroundings. 


The Spectator. 


THE LADIES ALEXANDRA, MARY AND THEO ACHESON 
Collection of Duke of Devonshire 


Exhibited at Royal Academy, London, 1902; at Franco-British exhibition, 
London, 1908. 

Another portrait group of three sisters, the daughters of Lord Gosford. 
This is in an open-air setting and is quite in the taste of the British 
eighteenth-century school. The spirited and pretty young ladies, all in 
white muslin summer costume, are grouped round a huge, dull-gilt jar in 
which is an orange tree heavily laden with fruit and leaves. ‘The lady to the 
left stands with both arms raised above her head, reaching up to pluck the 
fruit. The second sister, who has blue gauze round her neck, with a straying 
sash of light blue, is at the base of the jar, in a naive, half-shrinking mo- 
mentary attitude, as if about to rise from a sitting position. She is gathering 
up her semi-transparent muslin overskirt with both hands to serve as a 
fruit basket, and oranges gleam through the thin material. ‘The third figure, 
standing at the right, and looking away, wears a large black-plumed hat 
and a black and white sash. All of the sitters look as if they were posing for. 
a portrait; but the central figure is the most natural and ingenuous of the 
trio. There is a basket partly full of oranges in the foreground. In the 
background are sky, foliage, and the big jar. The design is neither very 
good nor very bad. It is one of a number of examples of Sargent’s endeavor 
to get away from the conventional arrangement of groups, an endeavor in 
which he was not always wholly successful. 

A not very exact comparison has been instituted between this picture and 
the Three Irish Graces of the National Gallery, yet, if markedly dissimilar 
from that particular Sir Joshua, the Acheson group is unmistakably an 
essay in the grand style. . . . The charge of artificiality is surely not jus- 
tified. Mr. Sargent, it is true, has chosen to represent a moment in the life 
of these sisters of an essentially transient kind. There is little or no sug- 


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OIL PAINTINGS, STUDIES AND SKETCHES 


gestion of past or coming experiences. A change of sky, and the thing 
vanishes. But it is not on that account less true—in design, in poise, in glad 
color—to the sentiment of the moment; the grace of the picture belongs to 
our own day.—The Art Journal. 

In the grand style, finely grouped in the open air, with a great vase in the 
middle holding an orange tree, from which one of the ladies gathers the 
fruit and another holds some covered up but not concealed in the lap of her 
muslin dress; and all are dressed in white, graceful, very tall, and smiling, 
elegant of figure and pretty of feature—the whole as refined in beauty as 
in color—a fine design nobly and learnedly carried out— Magazine of Art. 


MRS. LEOPOLD HIRSCH 
Exhibited at Royal Academy, London, 1902. 


Three-quarters length. A distinctly Jewish type. Elaborate pink and silver 
gown of old Spanish brocade, with a deep bertha of lace falling from the 
shoulders to the waist. The hands are lightly clasped together. 


LADY MEYSEY THOMPSON 
Exhibited at Royal Academy, London, 1902. 
In movement, in tone, and in color, it is a boisterous and noisy perform- 
ance.— The Athenaeum. 


GEORGE McCULLOCH 
A SALMON 


THE LATE MRS. GOETZ 
Painted in 1902. 


WILLIAM M. CHASE Metropolitan Museum, New York 
Exhibited at Copley Hall, Boston, 1902; at Society of American Artists, 
New York, 1903; at Pennsylvania Academy, 1903; at Louisiana Purchase 
Exposition, St. Louis, 1904. 

Standing in a characteristic pose, the figure, slightly relieved against a dark 
gray background, faces the spectator. In his left hand are a cluster of paint- 
brushes, a mahlstick, and a large palette smudged with paints. In the ex- 
tended right hand he holds a brush. The eyes look confidently out of the 


203 


CATALOGUE OF JOHN SINGER SARGENT 


picture from behind eyeglasses from which depends a broad black ribbon. 
Gift of his pupils, 1905. Signed. Canvas: 62 x 41 inches. 


INNOCENTS ABROAD 
Exhibited at Philadelphia, 1902. 
Sea beach, with the figures of four small boys, entirely nude. Two of them 
are lying on the sand at the right of the foreground; one, who wears a pair 
of water-wings, stands with his back towards the observer; and the fourth, 
a tiny youngster, is walking towards the spectator. The ocean in the back- 
ground, with a sloop near the horizon. 


HON. JOHN HAY Clarence L. Hay collection 
Exhibited at Copley Hall, Boston, 1903; at Panama-Pacific Exposition, 
San Francisco, 1915; at Grand Central Galleries, New York, 1924; at 
Corcoran Gallery, Washington, 1907 and 1916. 

American author, journalist, and diplomatist. He was assistant private 
secretary to President Lincoln, 1861-1865; first secretary of legation at 
Paris, 1865-1867; chargé d’affaires at Vienna, 1867-1868; secretary of 
legation at Madrid, 1868-1870; assistant secretary of State, 1879-1881; 
ambassador to Great Britain, 1897-1898; secretary of State, 1898-1905. 
He was the author of ‘“‘Pike County Ballads” and “Castilian Days,” also, 
in collaboration with J. G. Nicolay, of the “Life of Lincoln.” 
Bust length; full front. Very serious in expression; the gaze steady and 
concentrated; the right arm is thrown over the chair arm, the hand hanging 
idle. 
“John Hay,” rich in the Americanism of his time, a public man of ideals 
and strong opinions, and a humor that hardly would be recognized as such 
to-day; a portrait that makes one think of an essay by Lowell. 

New York Times. 
The attributes of a gentleman, writer, traveler, lover of art, thinker, 
leader and diplomat—not each in turn, but all together, are shown in the 


Hay portrait.—Rose V. S. Berry. 


JAMES C. CARTER, ESQ. Harvard Club, New York 
Exhibited at Pennsylvania Academy, 1903. 


The subject is out of doors, standing by some trees, and is dressed in gray, 
holding a topcoat over his arm. A tour de force of remarkable breadth and 


204 


OIL PAINTINGS, STUDIES AND SKETCHES 


certainty, in which everything is indicated in thé most simple manner and 
with masterly sweeps of the brush. Three-quarters length. 


MISS CARTER J.R. Carter collection 
Half-length portrait of a young lady in summer dress, shown in a conven- 
tional landscape setting. Her neck and shoulders, draped with voluminous 
tulle; the head relieved against a mass of dark foliage which fills the upper 
part of the canvas. 

Illustrated in Century Magazine, June, 1910. 


In 1910 Miss Carter was married to Lord Acheson, the son of Lord and 
Lady Gosford. 


CHARLES M. LOEFFLER, ESQ. Fenway Court, Boston 
Exhibited at Boston Art Museum, 1903. 
Boston musician, violinist, composer. Born in Alsace, 1861, came to Amer- 
ica in 1881. Among his compositions are “Les Veillées de ]’Ukraine,” 
“Fantastic Concerto,” “Divertimento in A minor,” “Symphonic Poem,” 
“The Death of Tintagiles,” ‘“Divertissement Espagnole,” “La Bonne 
Chanson,” “La Villanelle du Diable,” “Deux Rapsodies,” “By the Waters 
of Babylon,” “For One who Fell in Battle,” “A Pagan Poem,” “Hora 


Mystica,” also many songs. 


JAMES WILLIAM WHITE, M.D University of Pennsylvania 
Exhibited at Pennsylvania Academy, 1910. 
Eminent Philadelphia surgeon; professor of surgery in University of 
Pennsylvania. Author of “Human Anatomy,” “American Textbook of 
Surgery,” etc. He is depicted in his scholastic gown. 


MRS. WILLIAM HARTLEY CARNEGIE 
Mrs. W.C. Endicott collection 


Exhibited at Royal Academy, London, 1903; at Boston Art Museum, 
1916; at Grand Central Galleries, New York, 1924. 

Three-quarters length; standing; in a white silk dress, with long white 
gloves; holding a fan. The lips are slightly parted; the gaze open, direct, 
candid. The arrangement of the abundant dark hair, crowned by a feather 
ornament, is picturesque and becoming. 


205 


CATALOGUE OF JOHN SINGER SARGENT 


Mrs. Carnegie is a daughter of Mr. and Mrs. William C. Endicott; she 
became the wife of the late Hon. Joseph Chamberlain; and married, en 
secondes noces, Mr. Carnegie. 

Let us admit that neither Mr. Sargent nor any other living man has ever 
done anything more brilliant or achieved a greater technical triumph than 
the painting of the dress in this picture. It is as though a few strokes had 
done it, but what strokes! instinct with what power, what light, what 
color!—London Times. 


EDWARD ROBINSON, LL.D., LITT.D. 


Exhibited at Boston Art Museum, 1903; at Grand Central Galleries, 
New York, 1924. 

Director of Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; eminent as classical 
archaeologist; formerly curator of classical antiquities in Boston Art Mu- 
seum, and director; lecturer on classical archaeology at Harvard Uni- 
versity, etc. 

The likeness is very strong. Unusual pose, one result of which is to bring 
the head very near the top of the canvas. Figure standing, back to a table, 
on which the left hand is placed, and on which two antique Greek bronzes 
are seen. Background of books. 


A superb likeness, a museum piece, and astutely unrelated to any special 
environment, prepared to take its place with Venetian Sixteenth or Dutch 
Seventeenth or the Greek or Egyptian, a portrait from which predilection 
is erased, in which universal culture is underlined.—New York Times. 


MAJOR HENRY LEE HIGGINSON Harvard Union 
Exhibited at Boston Art Museum, 1903; at Grand Central Galleries, New 
York, 1924. 

Banker, soldier, public-spirited citizen of Boston, benefactor of Harvard, 
and “angel” of Boston Symphony Orchestra for many years. 

Full-length; seated; a pendant to the portrait of President Emeritus Eliot 
in the living room of the Harvard Union. By general consent held to be 
one of Sargent’s most sympathetic, intimate and felicitous portraits of men. 
The pose, showing the figure in a relaxed attitude, with the left arm thrown 
over the back of the chair, and with a black gown lying across the knees, 
though informal, is not without dignity. The work happily brings out the 
fine points of Major Higginson’s character. 


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OIL PAINTINGS, STUDIES AND SKETCHES 


The rich, dark background, where a table and an adjoining room may or 
may not be realized, frames a vital figure in a brown suit, seated carelessly 
with one arm around the back of his chair, and the whole bodily gesture of 
relaxedness well indicated under the folds of the heavy dressing gown 
thrown negligently across his knee like a rug. Everything on the large 
canvas seems to lead back and focus on the half-tilted face, with its kindly, 
quizzical gaze and its fine sensitiveness. 

Margaret Breuning in New York Evening Post. 
In this portrait of Major Higginson he has, through sympathy and consum- 
mate art, produced a work of superb quality and profound significance, a 
work which through its very vitality and human appeal dominates without 
aid of so-called pictorial accessories. The pose is essentially easy. There is 
reserve in the facial expression, but the eyes meet those of the observer with 
penetrating directness, the eyes of the keen observer of life, of an alert 
idealist —Leila Mechlin. 


JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY = John Herron Art Institute, Indianapolis 


Exhibited at Pennsylvania Academy, 1903; at Boston Art Museum, 1903; 
at Louisiana Purchase Exposition, St. Louis, 1904; at biennial exhibition, 
Corcoran Gallery, Washington, 1908-1909; at Albright Art Gallery, 
Buffalo, 1909; at Toledo Art Museum, 1912. 

The beloved Hoosier Poet. His works include ‘“The Old Swimmin’ Hole,” 
“The Boss Girl,” “Afterwhiles,” “Pipes o”? Pan at Zekesbury,” “Rhymes 
of Childhood,” “Home Folks,” ““An Old Sweetheart of Mine,” “Raggedy 
Man,” “Old Schoolday Romances,” ‘Home Again with Me,” and a score 
of other volumes, much of his verse being in the Middle Western or 
Hoosier dialect. 

Half-length. The Hoosier Poet, whose personality has been realized in this 
likeness with marked understanding, is represented as sitting, three-quarters 
front, looking downward through his eyeglasses; his left arm resting on the 
arm of the chair, the hand hanging with the fingers bent in a natural and 
characteristic movement, while the right hand, somewhat lower, holds a 
roll of manuscript. 


ALEXANDER J. CASSATT Pennsylvania Railroad Company 
Exhibited at Boston Art Museum, 1903; at Pennsylvania Academy, 1903. 
Late President of the Pennsylvania Railroad Company. 


207 


CATALOGUE OF JOHN SINGER SARGENT 


Just as Rembrandt, in his “Syndics,” in Amsterdam, was man enough to 
feel and express . . . commercial astuteness, business solidity, and poise, 
and the sense of responsibility in trade, so has Sargent here nobly and ap- 
preciatively read into a great page of art the same admirable and impressive 
traits of the great captains of industry.—Boston Transcript. 


PETER A. B. WIDENER 

Exhibited at Boston Art Museum, 1903; at Pennsylvania Academy, 1903. 
Capitalist, interested largely in street railways and many other important 
corporations; late city treasurer of Philadelphia; founder of the famous 
gallery of paintings in his palatial house at Elkins Park, Penn. 
Three-quarters length. Mr. Widener, whose expression is genial, looks like 
a man of modest and genuine character. He is represented standing near a 
door and in front of one of his favorite paintings in the main picture 
gallery of his mansion. 


MRS. JOSEPH E. WIDENER 

Exhibited at Pennsylvania Academy, 1903; at Boston Art Museum, 1903. 
Three-quarters length; seated; full front; wearing a white evening dress, 
sleeveless and low neck, with chiffon about the arms and scarf of the same 
material in lap; pearl ornaments; tapestry background. Extremely lively 
and vivacious in expression and attitude. This beautiful canvas is the last 
word in brilliancy and spontaneity. It is as fresh as the dawn and fairly 
pulsating with life. The dainty and delicate loveliness of the youthful 
sitter’s features and complexion are rendered with perfection, and the 
sprightly charm of her personality is conveyed with enchanting immediacy. 
Daughter-in-law of the late Peter A. B. Widener. 


MAJOR-GENERAL LEONARD WOOD, U.S.A. 

Exhibited at loan exhibition of twenty portraits by Sargent in Boston Art 
Museum, 1903; at Pennsylvania Academy, 1903; at Royal Academy, 
London, 1904; at Roman Art Exposition of 1911; at Grand Central 
Galleries, New York, 1924; at Corcoran Gallery, Washington, 1916—— 
1917. 

Major-General, U.S.A.; Commander of Rough Riders, 1898; Military 
Governor of Cuba, 1899-1902; Governor-General of the Philippine 
Islands since 1921; Congressional Medal of Honor; M.D. and LL.D, 


208 





THE YOUNGER CHILDREN OF ASHER WERTHEIMER, ESQ. 


Courtesy of the National Gallery, London, and William Heinemann, Ltd., London 





OIL PAINTINGS, STUDIES AND SKETCHES 


Harvard; with honorary degrees from twelve other universities and 
colleges. 
Half-length; in uniform. The head, turned slightly to the left, is modelled 
firmly, the shapes of the jaw, cheek bone, brow, temple, nose, etc., together 
with the calm and steady glance of the eyes, combining to give a general 
impression of marked poise, resolution, and force of character. 
A triumph of solid painting. There is nothing to attract attention by its 
cleverness in the portrait; it tells by the sheer force of the modelling. 

The Spectator. 


PRESIDENT ROOSEVELT White House, Washington 
Three-quarters length; standing; full front; with right hand on the knob 
of a newel post, and his left arm akimbo, hand on hip. Dark frock coat and 
gray trousers. 

When Mr. Sargent paints an American—the portrait of Mr. Roosevelt, 
for example—the eye has the look of America, the national habit is in the 
figure and head.—Alice Meynell. 

Sense of power cunningly realized by such devices as the outstretched hand, 
muscular and exaggerated, that grasps the support as if it were the great 
globe itself that he held in his iron grasp.—London Chronicle. 


PRESIDENT ROOSEVELT James Parmelee collection 


EARL OF CROMER 
Exhibited at Royal Academy, London, 1903. 
Evelyn Baring, Earl of Cromer, noted financier and diplomatist. He was 
appointed one of the comptrollers-general representing England and 
France in Egypt, 1879, became finance minister of India, 1880, and min- 
ister at Cairo in, 1883. He was created Baron in 1892, Viscount in 1899, 
and Earl in 1901. 
‘The portrait shows him sitting in his library, in a light gray suit, and is a 
fine likeness, but, according to the judgment of the majority of the critics, it 
lacks the genius to explain the secret of the qualities of mind and character 
that enabled this square-built Englishman to become the greatest ruler that 
Egypt has ever had since the days of the Pharaohs. 


The picture is a good and sound piece of work, without affectation, but 
also without imagination. There is little in this gentleman sitting by his 


209 


CATALOGUE OF JOHN SINGER SARGENT 


writing table which suggests the successor of Pharaoh; and here the artist 
was at fault, for he might have suggested this with strict adherence to the 
visible characteristics of his subject. The man who has given justice, peace, 
law, security, to the Land of the River, and that not by force, but by force 
of character, does not speak from the canvas as he ought. 


H. S. in The Spectator. 


MOTHER AND DAUGHTER 
[MRs,. FISKE WARREN AND HER DAUGHTER RACHEL | 
Exhibited at Boston Art Museum, 1903; at Roman Art Exposition of 
1911; at Worcester Art Museum, 1912; at Corcoran Gallery, Washing- 
ton, 1912-1913; at seventeenth international exhibition Carnegie Insti- 
tute, Pittsburgh, 1913; at loan exhibition of portraits, Copley Hall, Bos- 
ton, 1914; at Grand Central Galleries, New York, 1924; at Boston 
Women’s City Club, 1924. 
Painted in the Gothic Room, Fenway Court, Boston, 1903. This is one of 
the painter’s most felicitous and sympathetic portrait groups. It gives expres- 
sion to the ties of kinship between two lives, the things that lie deeper than 
external resemblance but are often suggested by it. As respects the chief 
figure the picture recalls in a measure the flower-like radiant beauty of 
young motherhood that was so well embodied in the Mrs. Carl Meyer of | 
1897; while the charm of sweet, unsullied, wistful maidenhood in the 
face and figure of the daughter is unexcelled in any of Sargent’s works. 
The color is rich, delicate, and harmonious, though without great depth. 
Mrs. Warren wears a low-necked white satin gown in which there are 
faint tinges of rose-pink; a feather boa has slipped from her shoulders to 
her elbow and hangs over the edge of her chair. The daughter’s dress is of 
a delicate shade of rose-pink. Sargent’s success in using this difficult color is 
equal to that of Alfred Stevens. 
One of Sargent’s charming paintings, one in which he more than ordinarily 
permits himself to let the element of sentiment enter into the conception. 
. . . There is something unspeakably lovely about the movement of the 
daughter’s figure and the expression of her face.—Boston Transcript. 


MRS. J. WILLIAM WHITE 


Exhibited at Pennsylvania Academy, 1903; at Boston Art Museum, 1903; 
at Panama-Pacific Exposition, San Francisco, 1915; at Art Club of Phil- 
adelphia, 1919. 


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OIL PAINTINGS, STUDIES AND SKETCHES 


Half-length; full front; painted in an afternoon; the head is finished, the 
rest rather roughly blocked in. 
In this portrait Sargent succeeded in obtaining a splendid likeness and fine 
vivacity. By leaving the picture in its sketchy state he has retained a fresh- 
ness and a verve beyond any finished work he might have done. 

Rose V. 5S. Berry. 


S. WEIR MITCHELL, M.D. Mutual Assurance Company, Philadelphia 
Exhibited at Boston Art Museum, 1903; at Pennsylvania Academy, 1903. 
Eminent neurologist and author. The long list of his published books in- 
cludes scientific works, more especially treatises on nervous diseases and the 
rest treatment, as well as some twenty novels and biographies. Among his 
romances are “Hugh Wynne,” “In War Time,” “The Wager,” “The 
Mind Reader,” “The Red City,” ‘Constance Trescot,” ‘Comedy of 


Conscience.” 


Half-length; seated; wearing his academic gown, and holding a book in 
his left hand, with elbow resting on a table. The dreamy, speculative ex- 
pression in the eyes is to be noted. 


Not only is the brushwork more than usually fraught with inspired facility, 
but the likeness is admirable, and has the further value of being a serious 
study of psychological expression. This, indeed, is likely to remain one of 
the most significant of Sargent’s portraits, a remarkable presentation of a 
very remarkable man.—IJnternational Studio. 


MRS. CHARLES P. CURTIS, JR. 
Exhibited at Boston Art Museum, 1903. 


A member of the family represented in the diploma work, “A Venetian 
Interior,” now in Burlington House. 


G. McCORQUODALE, ESQ. 
Exhibited at Royal Academy, London, 1903. 


An ably painted portrait of a fair-haired man in a black velvet coat. It 
presents in a striking manner the modern combination of the keen busi- 
ness man with the still keener sportsman. 


MRS. GARDINER G. HAMMOND 
Exhibited at Boston Art Museum, 1903. 


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CATALOGUE OF JOHN SINGER SARGENT 


JUDGE W. C. LORING ib 
Exhibited at Boston Art Museum, 1903. 


MRS. JULIUS WERNHER 
Exhibited at Royal Academy, London, 1903. 
She is now Lady Ludlow. 


MRS. PHILIP AGNEW 
Exhibited at Royal Academy, London, 1903. 


LADY EVELYN CAVENDISH 
Exhibited at Royal Academy, London, 1903. 


She is now the Duchess of Devonshire. 


HIS STUDIO Boston Art Museum 
Exhibited at New English Art Club, London, 1904. 


Study of an interior with one figure. A small room, the right half of which 
is filled with an unmade bed; on the foot of the bed hang a white shirt and 
a blue garment; at the left sits a man in profile, with a palette and brushes 
in his left hand; he has a large beard and wears gray-brown clothes. 
Against the end wall leans a large painting, supported on the bed and the 
washstand; on this stand are a bowl and pitcher; two sketches stand on the 
floor, another is lying on the bed, and a Panama hat has been thrown on 
the bed; the walls of the room are yellowish-brown. 


Painted in 1903. Signed in the upper right corner. Canvas: 217% x 28% 
inches. Purchased, Charles Henry Hayden Fund, 1905. 


MRS. ASHER WERTHEIMER Tate Gallery, London 

Exhibited at Royal Academy, London, 1904; at the Franco-British Expo- 
sition, London, 1908. 
Mrs. Wertheimer is shown seated in an armchair; facing full front; 
nearly full-length; holding a fan in her right hand; her dress is of black 
silk; and she is wearing much jewelry, including a triple string of pearls 
around her neck and an aigrette of diamonds in her hair. On a table at the 
left are some curios and objets dart. 


The beauty of the work is of so subtle a kind that it can hardly be put into 


212 


OIL PAINTINGS, STUDIES AND SKETCHES 


words; the artist will revel in it as a technical achievement, the student of 
humanity will be moved by it for quite other reasons. Mr. Sargent has 
never stood as high or so legitimately compelled admiration as here. 

Sir Claude Phillips. 

A searching study of character, in an admirably sober and discreet arrange- 

ment. The prevailing hue’is black, but it is so well modified that it is far 

from giving an impression of monotony or dullness. A picture which 

‘reaches a height of accomplishment that even he has seldom before 

attained.—T he Spectator. 


SIR THOMAS LANE DEVITT 


Exhibited at Royal Academy, 1904. 

‘Three-quarters length; in a frock coat; standing by a table on which is a 
finely wrought model of a historic full-rigged ship. 

First Baronet. Senior partner in the firm of Devitt & Moore; chairman of 
Lloyd’s Register of Shipping; president Equitable Life Assurance Society ; 
master of the Skinners Company; president of the United Kingdom 
Chamber of Shipping; chairman General Ship-Owners’ Society; president 
Institute of Marine Engineers; etc. 


CHARLES STEWART, MARQUESS OF LONDONDERRY 

Exhibited at Royal Academy, London, 1904. 

As its full title (“Charles Stewart, Sixth Marquess of Londonderry, K.G., 
Carrying the Great Sword of State at the Coronation, August, 1902, 
and Mr. W. C. Beaumont, his page on that occasion”), would imply, this 
is a parade portrait, and, according to one of the critics of the day, the 
artist was as much puzzled about what to do with the sword of state as the 
Marquess himself. The best part of the picture is the page, Mr. Beaumont, 
who is painted with artistic sympathy and charm. 


DUCHESS OF SUTHERLAND 


Exhibited at Royal Academy, London, 1904; at New Salon, Paris, 1905; 
at the Fair Women exhibition, New Gallery, London, 1909; at Royal 
Society of Portrait Painters, Grafton Galleries, London, 1915. 


Full-length; standing. 
In this canvas the sitter, who is wearing a cold green gown, is projected 
against a mysterious warm-toned woodland background. 


Din 


CATALOGUE OF JOHN SINGER SARGENT 


COUNTESS OF LATHOM 
Exhibited at Royal Academy, London, 1904. 
This is an unusual and pleasing harmony of dull blue and dull plum color. 
The composition is easy and natural. 


A very good picture, but not, we take it, a very good portrait; that is to say, 
the rendering of character is not sufficiently intense to dominate the parade 
of the setting —The Athenaeum. 


MRS. HUGH SMITH 
Exhibited at New Gallery, London, 1904. 


The dexterity of the painting is as great as ever, but the abstraction of the 
forms and tones seems too easily done.-—T he Spectator. 


MRS. ALLHUSEN 


Exhibited at National Portrait Society, London, 1919. 


SIR HENRY LUCY 
Exhibited at New Gallery, London, 1904. 


One of the editors of Punch, known under the pseudonym of Toby, M.P., 
who died in 1924, leaving an estate of £250,000. In memory of his long 
connection with Punch, his portrait by Sargent was offered to the proprie- 
tors of that periodical, to be hung on the walls of the Punch dining room 
for ten years, after which it was to be offered to the directors of the 
National Portrait Gallery. 


The painter . . . seems to have known so exactly what he intended to do 
that there is none of the stimulating effect of discovery. No hidden treasure 
is brought to light; all was known from the beginning.—T he Spectator. 


MRS. JOHN C. TOMLINSON 
Exhibited at Society of American Artists, New York, 1904. 


Three-quarters length; standing; full front. Her right elbow rests on a 
carved marble mantelpiece over which hangs a picture, of which only the 
lower corner is visible. Her costume is a dark evening gown cut low in the 
neck and sleeveless, with touches of white at bosom and shoulders. 


214 


OIL PAINTINGS, STUDIES AND SKETCHES 


LADY WARWICK AND HER SON Worcester Art Museum 


Exhibited at Royal Academy, 1905; at Venice international art exhibition, 
1907. 

Of monumental size, this work, executed in 1905, was said to be a favorite 
with the artist himself; it was painted with a confessed liking for the 
subjects. The figures are at full length, and are shown in a landscape set- 
ting somewhat conventionalized. Lady Warwick is standing, and her little 
son is seated on a carved stone pedestal at her side. 


The finest thing about it is the spirit which guided the painter’s brush, 
permeated the sumptuous coloring, and brought everything into temper and 
keeping with the aristocratic personages represented. The affection and 
conscious pride of the mother are finely in accord with the dreaminess of 
the lithe yet frail and handsome little boy. An indefinable dramatic element 
in Lady Warwick’s attitude—a fine rebellious theatricalness such as we 
associate with some of George Meredith’s heroines rightly at war with the 
spirit of the age—completes the living attraction of this regal painting. 
Bulletin of the Worcester Art Museum 


MR. AND MRS. JOHN W. FIELD 
Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts 


Exhibited at exhibition of the gallery of national portraiture, Pennsylvania 
Academy, 1905; at Grand Central Galleries, New York, 1924. 


Mr. and Mrs. Field were the donors to the Pennsylvania Academy of the 
Field collection. The heads, especially that of Mrs. Field, are notable for 
the close, firm drawing and modelling. A nice touch of intimacy and 
affection is given by the confiding nature of the wife’s position as she folds 
both of her hands over her husband’s arm. Her character is well suggested 
not only in her physiognomy and expression but by the quaint old-fashioned 
and severe arrangement of her coiffure. 


This quiet and gracious couple, simplicity and worth in every feature, the 
man a shade more proud of his flowing beard than the woman of her 
smooth-brushed hair, lovely symbols of the older generation in the Ameri- 
can eighties, are nevertheless a trifle duller than they would seem to-day, 
when the importance of their silhouette would have been a matter of greater 
concern. A thin, reddish, careful, respectful picture, likeness written on 
every inch of it, nothing in it speaks of the later Sargent except the hand of 


215 


CATALOGUE OF JOHN SINGER SARGENT 


Mr. Field, upon whose arm his wife is leaning with the conventional 
American gesture of dependence.—New York Times. 

Sargent is not renowned for sentiment, but his portrait of Mr. and Mrs. 
Field . . . is one of the most touching interpretations of comradeship in 
old age that has ever been made. It is a portrait in which there is the note 
of the universal.—Leila Mechlin. 


GENERAL CHARLES J. PAINE 
Exhibited at Boston Art Museum, 1905, 1916, 1924 and 1925. 


A very fine characterization of the man. It is a very serious head in every 
sense of the word. The expression about the eyes is sad, and the drooping 
ends of the long, sparse moustache in some way accentuate the impression 
of low spirits. The left arm is thrown over the back of the chair and the 
hands are clasped loosely together. In the background is what appears to be 
a dimly seen carved cabinet at the left in shadow. In the thought of the 
public it may be supposed General Paine is mainly associated with the own- 
ership of the three victorious yachts which in succession won the America 
Cup in competition with their British rivals; while his honorable record as 
a soldier in the Civil War, as a director of important railroad companies, 
and in various public offices, is but vaguely recalled by the younger gen- 
eration.—W. H. D. in Boston Transcript. 


THE MARLBOROUGH FAMILY Blenheim Palace collection 
Exhibited at Royal Academy, London, 1905. 


A monumental work of great size and imposing effect, in which all the 
pompous surroundings of peer’s robes and florid architecture are brought 
into play. One of the most ambitious compositions produced by the artist, 
yet having the appearance of having been executed with the utmost ease. 
The poses of the figures are stately and contained; the grouping is ex- 
ceedingly skilful; the setting is appropriate; and in the design the pyra- 
midal mass composed of the figures of the Duchess and her children is 
excellent. The figure of the Duke has real dignity. He wears a dark blue 
robe with white lining. The work is held together by the strength and 
brilliancy of the salmon pink and gray gold of the central portion. ‘The 
painting of the architecture is luminous and clear; while the placing of the 
figures in their atmosphere and the realization of the picture space are 
masterly. 


216 





MISS BETTY WERTHEIMER 


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Charles Richard John Spencer-Churchill, ninth Duke of Marlborough, 
P.C., K.G., married a daughter of W. K. Vanderbilt of New York. She 
obtained a divorce in 1920. The Duke’s second wife is a daughter of 
Edward Parker Deacon of Boston. Residence: Blenheim Palace, Wood- 
stock, Oxon. 


His Marlborough group is a remarkable essay in a field where even 
Reynolds did not altogether succeed. The silhouette of the Duke is the 
finest part.— Saturday Review. 


Fine painter’s qualities are seen in the Duke’s robe, the dark blue of which 
is enlivened by pieces of the white lining. No one but a master of values 
could have made these strong contrasts assert themselves without harshness, 
or have realized the fine effect of tone produced by the hand on the sword 
against the background.— The Spectator. 


MRS. ERNEST RAPHAEL 
Exhibited at New Gallery, London, 1905. 


MRS. ROBERT M. MATHIAS 
[A VELE GONFIE ] 


Exhibited at Royal Academy, London, 1905; at Fair Women exhibition, 
Grafton Gallery, London, 1910. 


Three-quarters length; standing; wrapped in a long dark cloak, and 
wearing gloves and a plumed hat, Mrs. Mathias (born Ena Wertheimer) 
turns her head to the left with a smile. The right arm uplifted, and the 
hand, brought across at the level of the chest, holds the voluminous cloak 
in place with a gesture full of histrionic vigor. A harmony in black, white, 
gray and gold. 


The English critics appear to have been somewhat annoyed because they 
could not fully understand this fantastic work. “One of those odd paint- 
ings with which Mr. Sargent occasionally puzzles the public,” wrote one of 
them. “One does not know how far the irony is conscious,” said the 
Athenaeum writer. Another journalist told his readers that the artist went 
over this canvas not less than twenty times, yet, he added, the swift and 
easy handling leaves no sense of effort, but rather of careless improvisation, 
Robert Ross, in the Art Journal, called the work “the only fantastic and in 
many ways the most inspired of all the Wertheimer Sargents.” 


217 


CATALOGUE OF JOHN SINGER SARGENT 


Of this picture a mezzotint engraving by Leopold Goetze was published 
by the Fine Art Society of London. 


Canvas: 6314 x 41% inches. 


SIR FRANK ATHELSTANE SWETTENHAM 

Exhibited at New Gallery, London, 1905. 
The late High Commissioner of the Malay States; Governor and Com- 
mander in chief of Straits Settlement, with a distinguished career as civil 
servant, author, etc., to his credit. 
He stands in white uniform with order and sword. Behind the figure, at 
the top of the picture, is seen the lower part of a large terrestrial globe with 
a gilded stand, and a sofa is heaped with gorgeous stuffs of red and gold. 
Another essay in grandiose portraiture, very ingeniously piled up to the 
great globe at the top, and the figure well posed and painted. 

Saturday Review. 
The personality of the subject of the picture, both in figure and face, 
dominates the surrounding magnificence. The skill with which the white 
clothes are painted is remarkable even for this painter, and it is difficult to 
know which to admire more, the brilliancy of the handling or the subtlety 
of the rendering of the direct and diffused light as it strikes on the varying 
facets of the body.—T he Spectator. 


MRS. ADOLPH HIRSCH 


Exhibited at New Gallery, London, 1905; at National Portrait Society 
exhibition, Grosvenor Gallery, London, 1913. 


LADY HELEN VINCENT 
Exhibited at Royal Academy, London, 1905. 
She is now Lady D’Abernon. 
Curtly dismissed by one of the critics as a “perfunctory work.” 


PADRE SEBASTIANO Metropolitan Museum, New York 
Exhibited at New English Art Club, London, 1906. 


A portrait of an earnest young priest who sits botanizing at a table in a 
disorderly bedroom. It was originally catalogued in London under the title 
of “Padre Albera.” 1905-1906. 


218 


OIL PAINTINGS, STUDIES AND SKETCHES 


He has never, for subdued spirituality, approached Padre Albera, seated at 
his writing-table with books and papers strewn about.—Christian Brinton. 


GETHSEMANE 
Exhibited at New Gallery, London, 1906. 


One can find a certain amusement in . . . the apparently casual dabs and 
dashes, every one of which falls unerringly into its proper place at the 
proper distance.—London Times. 
For downright luminosity he has never surpassed that dazzling, coruscated 
strip of Syrian landscape with its stunted trees against the sky. 

Christian Brinton. 


SENOR MANUEL GARCIA Rhode Island School of Design 
Exhibited at Royal Academy, London, 1905. 


Painted in London in 1905 and presented to Sefior Garcia on the occasion 
of his one hundred and first birthday. It remained in his possession until 
his death. Professor in the Royal Academy of Music for many years, and 
author of a famous treatise on the human voice, Garcia has been called by 
one of his pupils and friends the most illustrious singing master of the 
nineteenth century. Among his pupils were Jenny Lind, Adelina Patti and 
Henrietta Nilssen. The painting represents Garcia at his best. It may with- 
out exaggeration be called a great portrait of a great man. Nearly full- 
length; seated; profile view of the fine head, held erect, and showing but 
slight signs of his great age. Frock coat and dark gray trousers. Legs 
crossed. ‘The head and the long, thin hands are drawn with superb mastery. 


In the long list of the artist’s canvases the Garcia portrait ranks with the 
best. . . . In Manuel Garcia he had a subject who in his line was a power, 
and who achieved distinction by personal genius, and the painter evidently 
welcomed the opportunity to place in enduring form his study of this 
interesting character.—Bulletin of Rhode Island School of Design. 


THE MOUNTAINS OF MOAB 
Exhibited at Royal Academy, London, 1906; at Royal Scottish Academy, 
Edinburgh, 1911. 
A wonderful rendering of quivering light and heat. This was the first 
landscape shown in a public gallery by Sargent, and it was received as 
evidence of his great power as a landscape painter. 


219 


CATALOGUE OF JOHN SINGER SARGENT 


LANDSCAPE WITH GOATS Freer Gallery, Washington 


Exhibited at New Gallery, London, 1906; at Panama-Pacific Exposition, 
San Francisco, 1915; at Boston Art Museum, 1916; at Corcoran Gallery, 
Washington, 1916-1917; at Grand Central Galleries, New York, 1924. 
A typical example of the painter’s predilection for unusual motives, not 
often of a promising sort, upon which he dwells with gusto. 


HON. MRS. FREDERICK GUEST 


Exhibited at Royal Academy, London, 1906; at eleventh international 
exhibition Carnegie Institute, Pittsburgh, 1907; at Grand Central Gal- 
leries, New York, 1924. 

Three-quarters length. Landscape background. The lady is shown standing 
on a terrace, her head and the upper part of her figure being relieved against 
a mass of foliage in the background. She holds a small spaniel in her arms. 


Will always have a place in the very front rank of his pictures, so full is 
it of life and character, so charming in color and so superb in painting. 
London Times. 
The fine workmanship about the head and face draws us, but over all this 
canvas there spring into view the evidences of the painter’s manual dex- 
terity. The painting of the dog is by itself a tour de force-—Royal Cortissoz. | 


C. NAPIER HEMY, ESQ. New Gallery, London 
Exhibited at New Gallery, London, 1906. 


Sketch portrait of a London colleague. Bust length; full front. A virile 
head, with long gray hair falling over the ears and parted in the middle; 
dark piercing eyes under prominent brows; a rather stern expression. Fine 
characterization; and it exhibits the adroit and decisive sort of brushwork 
which builds up a head and face with the greatest economy of means. Mr. 
Hemy is a well-known English marine painter. 


SEYMOUR LUCAS, ESQ. 
Exhibited at New Gallery, London, 1906. 


Sketch portrait of a fellow artist. Mr. Lucas is an able painter of historic 
genre. His “After Culloden” was purchased by the Royal Academy in 
1884 under the Chantrey Bequest and is now in the Tate Gallery; his 
“Gordon Riots” is in the Melbourne Gallery. He is an Academician. 


220 


OIL PAINTINGS, STUDIES AND SKETCHES 


MISS MARY ELIZABETH GARRETT 


Medical School, Johns Hopkins University 
Exhibited at Corcoran Gallery, Washington, 1907; at inaugural exhibition 
of Baltimore Museum of Art, 1923; at Grand Central Galleries, New 
York, 1924. 
Nearly full-length; seated; black dress and long white collar and fichu; 
red roses at waistline; a pile of books on a stand at the right, on which the 
sitter’s left arm is resting. The fine head, slightly inclined to her left, 
wears a benignant expression about the mouth and eyes. 


THE FOUR DOCTORS Johns Hopkins University 


Exhibited at Royal Academy, London, 1906; at eleventh international 
exhibition Carnegie Institute, Pittsburgh, 1907; at Corcoran Gallery, 
Washington, 1907. 
This great portrait group of four distinguished members of the faculty of 
the medical school of Johns Hopkins University, Doctor William H. 
Welch, Doctor William Osler, Doctor William S. Halsted, and Doctor 
Howard A. Kelly, was painted in London in 1906. 
Where else in the present day shall we find heads painted like these? 

The Spectator 
A marvellously fine composition. . . . The dexterous way in which the 
artist has used the hoods, the books, and the globe to relieve the gloom of 
gowns and backgrounds is beyond praise.—London Times. 
Touches on absolute mastery within the limits of its aims. . . . The 
masses of black are strong and elastic in structure, and each brush stroke is 
directly descriptive of surface character. The background is nobly handled, 
and the execution throughout of a power and insight that belie the rather 
photographic arrangement of the subject—The Athenaeum. 
It is a great portrait, because of its sound workmanship and the stamp of 
originality that is upon it—Royal Cortissoz. 


FIELD-MARSHAL EARL ROBERTS, K.G.,, V.C. 
Exhibited at Royal Academy, London, 1906. 


Lord Roberts, Commander in chief and Field Marshal of the British 
army, popularly known as “‘Bobs”, the beloved apostle of preparedness, was 
an ideal soldier. He had served in the Indian Mutiny, in the Abyssinian 


221 


CATALOGUE OF JOHN SINGER SARGENT 


War, and in the Afghan War, and was the recipient of all the honors that 
a grateful nation could confer. 


Depicted in the full uniform of a field marshal, his coat well adorned with 
a number of orders, medals and decorations. Three-quarters length; stand- 
ing. He holds a sword under his left arm. Architectural background. 


A masterly performance; the likeness is excellent, and the figure full of 
the animation so characteristic of the youngest of our veterans. 


London Times. 


MAUD, DAUGHTER OF GEORGE COATS, ESQ. 
Exhibited at Royal Academy, London, 1906. 


A portrait of a young girl, who has since become the Marchioness of 
Douro. 


Shows Mr. Sargent in a new character, as a painter of débutantes. 


London Times. 


BEHIND THE CURTAIN 
Exhibited at New English Art Club, London, 1906. 
A sketch representing some lads working a group of marionettes. 


There seems no sufficient reason why such a subject should be painted; but, 
then, Mr. Sargent would never have been able to get at the truth of life as 
he does unless he had from the beginning looked curiously at these momen- 
tary situations and recorded them with a rapid brush. London Times. 


MLLE. E. S. 
Exhibited at Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts, Paris, 1906. 


LADY EDEN Wilstach Gallery, Memorial Hall, Philadelphia 


Exhibited at Royal Academy, London, 1907; at Knoedler Galleries, New 
York, 1918. 

Half-length; profile view. Lady Eden is depicted playing a game of Soli- 
taire, in which, however, she does not seem to take a very deep interest. Her 
profile is distinctly handsome, and the contours of her head, neck and 
shoulders are altogether most comely. Background of gray wall with 
pilasters; a large urn-shaped vase at left. 


222 


OIL PAINTINGS, STUDIES AND SKETCHES 


PRESIDENT EMERITUS CHARLES W. ELIOT  4Hearvard Union 
Exhibited at Grand Central Galleries, New York, 1924. 


This large painting is the pendant to the portrait of Major Henry Lee 
Higginson, in the same room. President Eliot, at full length, in his 
scholastic gown, is shown coming down an elaborate curving staircase, 
apparently from a gallery or portico. He has stopped on one of the steps. 
He is bareheaded, and in his right hand he holds a sheet of paper. ‘The 
right side of the composition is made up of massive Baroque architecture. 
The middle background shows a bleak sky and some dark trees. ‘This work 
was the subject of a very severe criticism in the Harvard Graduates’ Maga- 
zine for December, 1907. “Nothing more unlike Cambridge, or the 
buildings at Harvard, or President Eliot’s haunts and habits, so far as the 
public knows them, could easily be suggested than this setting,” declared 
the writer of this review. “When we examine the portrait itself, we are 
impressed by the fact that Mr. Sargent has as little divined President Eliot 
as his Harvard habitat. He makes the figure inordinately tall, and, in spite 
of its gown, unnaturally slender; and on this lamp-post body he puts a small 
head. . . . This painting, as a whole, like most of Mr. Sargent’s works of 
the past dozen years, seems to carry this message from him: ‘I chose to do 
just this, and I have succeeded.’” The critic replies amen, merely adding 
that “just this”, though it may display Mr. Sargent’s wonderful virtuosity, 
has not resulted in a characteristic portrait of the President of Harvard. 


SELF PORTRAIT U fizi Gallery, Florence 
Painted in 1907, at the age of fifty-one. Half-length; full front; light 
falling on left side of the face. The expression is serious; the gaze level 
and steady. It is of interest to note that it was at this period that Sargent 
produced the group of the Four doctors for Johns Hopkins University, and 
the portraits of Mr. and Mrs. Field, Joseph Pulitzer, Hon. Mrs. Frederick 
Guest, and President Emeritus Eliot. It is also a matter of record that the 
painter’s devotion to portraiture had waned to such an extent that he openly 
expressed his determination to abandon it as his specialty. 


REV. EDMOND WARERE, D.D., C.B., M.V.O. 
Exhibited at New Gallery, London, 1907. 


Late Head Master of Eton College, seen at full length, standing, in the 
black robes of a Doctor of Divinity, with his mortarboard cap held in one 


2a 


CATALOGUE OF JOHN SINGER SARGENT 


hand, and a book in the other. In the background the ancient stone buildings 
of Eton. A flight of steps at the left; at the right a massive pier; and at the 
top of the picture, in the center, the lower part of a stained-glass window. 
Mr. Sargent’s large full-length of the Rev. Edmond Warre, D.D., is 
dignified and impressive, and is certainly not lacking in character. 
International Studio. 


The figure does not somehow seem to belong to the background of old 
buildings, which are not at all convincing in solidity. ‘They are theatrical 
properties rather than stone which has stood for centuries. 


H.S.in The Spectator. 


MRS. HAROLD HARMSWORTH 

Exhibited at New Gallery, London, 1907. 
In this work the painter set himself problems of color and light. The sun 
warms the color of the flesh, and lights up the dark trees of the background 
in places, making a distinctly pictorial effect. 
The way in which the form and color of the raised hand and the shoulders 
are lost and found in the diaphanous drapery is a piece of supreme virtu- 
osity. ‘This and the sensitive drawing of the lady’s left arm are things which 
Mr. Sargent does perfectly, and others imitate a long way off. 

H.S.in The Spectator. 


A. AUGUSTUS HEALY Brooklyn Museum 
Exhibited at ninth exhibition of American paintings, Albright Art Gallery, 
Buffalo, N. Y.; at Corcoran Gallery, Washington, Ig10-1911. 

The President of the Brooklyn Institute of Arts and Sciences. Mr. Healy 
is shown as a man evidently in the sixties, with gray hair, moustache and 
small beard; seated in an armchair, over the back of which his left arm is 
placed, so that his hand, holding his gloves, occupies the lower right fore- 
ground. His black coat and tie are placed against the dark background in 
such a way that the salient impression of the picture is the head of the 
sitter. 

Signed and dated 1907. Canvas: 2814 x 321% inches. 

It is difficult to imagine a modern portrait more striking in dignity of 
pose, freedom of drawing, and rich harmony of color. The fine intellec- 
tual head of the model is painted with thought and feeling; the strong 
virile features are filled with a wonderful intensity of life. Over and 


224 





LORD RIBBLESDALE 


Courtesy of the National Gallery, London, and William Heinemann, Ltd., London 






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beyond the outward semblance of the sitter, Mr. Sargent succeeds in cap- 
turing such elusive essentials as his psychology, his customary attitude of 
mind, heredity, traits, personal temperament, and individual attributes. 


Academy Notes, Buffalo. 


LADY SASSOON Sir Philip Sassoon collection 
Exhibited at Royal Academy, London, 1907. 
In this picture, which is an interesting study in black enlivened by accents 
of rose pink, the pale face, full of character, detaches itself with remark- 
able force and distinction. Lady Sassoon, who died in 1909, was herself an 
artist of considerable ability, a member of the Pastel Society, and a regular 
contributor to its exhibitions, her specialty being portrait studies. 
Admittedly one of his finest portraits. The “‘slick” texture of the paint, 
and the want of quality in the rose-color setting off the black dress, prevent 
me from enjoying as much as I should like the vividness and power of a 
portrait to which the charm of the sitter contributes much. 
Laurence Binyon in Saturday Review. 
‘The composition, so far as it consists in choosing a large and noble aspect of 
the painter’s subject and setting it upon the canvas, is masterly, and—a 
thing not always to be claimed for Mr. Sargent when he paints a woman’s 
portrait—the face is rendered with much delicacy and feminine charm. 
The Athenaeum. 
Sargent’s full-length of Lady Sassoon . . . ranks among the unforget- 
table achievements in modern British portraiture.—Art Journal. 


SIR PHILIP SASSOON Sir Philip Sassoon collection 
Exhibited at Royal Academy, London, 1924; at Walker Art Gallery, 
Liverpool, 1924. 

Sir Philip Sassoon, third baronet, M.P., G.B.E., C.M.G.; parliamentary 
secretary to Lloyd George; private secretary to Field Marshal Sir Douglas 
Haig in 1915-1918; trustee of the National Gallery. 

Half-length; three-quarters front; a slim figure, with a lean, pale, 
thoughtful visage, rather serious, and, according to one imaginative news- 
paper reviewer, “with a slight touch of aristocratic insolence.” 

Broad and masterly. . . . Worthy in its degree to rank with the great 
American’s triumphant study of Lord Ribblesdale, now at the Tate 
Gallery—J. P. Collins. 


225 


CATALOGUE OF JOHN SINGER SARGENT 


COUNTESS OF ESSEX Boston Art Museum 


Exhibited at Royal Academy, London, 1907; at the Copley Gallery, 
Boston 1917. 

In oval frame. A brilliant but somewhat factitious canvas, reminiscent of 
the French eighteenth-century school. Lady Essex was a very fine subject 
for a portrait, and the work is not without a trace of the charm which was 
inherent in the personality of the sitter. Edwards bequest, 1925. 

A succés a estime such as Sargent produces when he is really enjoying his 
own composition. . . . The dress of the sitting dark-haired woman is of 
sheeny white satin. From this the artist has worked into the lights and 
reflections of the satin an overskirt of pale blue; from this into the smoky 
blue chiffon of the half floating scarf, and from this into the blue and 
white sky framing the head.—Christian Science Monitor. 


MRS. A. L. LANGMAN 
Exhibited at Royal Academy, London, 1907. 


Three-quarters length; seated on a sofa; white dress; sleeping dog nestling 
against his mistress’s cloak; red drapery in background at left. The head is 
full front and is relieved against a dark ground. 


REV. ENDICOTT DePEABODY 
Exhibited at Pennsylvania Academy, 1907. 
Head Master of Groton School since 1884. Graduate of Cheltenham Col- 
lege, University of Cambridge, and Episcopal Theological School, Cam- 
bridge, Mass. Honorary degrees from Yale and Harvard. 
‘Three-quarters length; standing; in his academic gown; with his arms 


folded. 


ARCHITECTURAL STUDY 
Exhibited at New Gallery, London, 1907. 
Through, a colonnade, an equestrian statue is seen, dimly lighted, in a 
pillared recess which offers a fine contrast with the flood of strong daylight 
on the architecture in front. The solidity of the structure, the freedom of 
the handling, and the painting of the sunlight that falls on the objects 
represented, are all to be admired. 


226 


OIL PAINTINGS, STUDIES AND SKETCHES 


LADY SPEYER (LEONORA VON STOSCH) 
Exhibited at Royal Academy, London, 1907. 


Three-quarters length; standing, and holding a violin in the correct position 
for playing. The bow, held in suspense in the right hand, indicates that the 
soloist is about to begin her performance. White muslin dress. In the back- 
ground is a small cabinet organ or an old clavichord with carved legs and 
painted decorations. 


THE FOUNTAIN Art Institute of Chicago 


Exhibited at New English Art Club, 1907; at twenty-fifth exhibition of 
American painting and sculpture, Art Institute of Chicago, 1912; at 
Grand Central Galleries, New York, 1924. 


On the terrace of a stately park are two figures, those of a woman and a 
man, both attired in white. ‘The woman is sitting before a sketching easel 
on which is a canvas, and she is evidently hard at work on a study of the 
fountain which is visible in the background, against a mass of verdant 
foliage; while the man is leaning back and half closing his eyes in order 
to get the general effect of the unfinished work. A stone balustrade in the 
background. The water from the fountain jets upward in a vertical 
column beyond. Gift to the Art Institute of Chicago from the Friends of 
American Art, 1914. 


Canvas: 281% x 22 inches. Reproduced in Bulletin of Art Institute, Vol. 
7, 1914, p. 63; also in Fine Arts Journal, No. 30, 1914, p. 302. Signed. 
The models for the two figures in this picture were Mr. and Mrs. Wilfrid 
de Glehn, friends of Sargent, both of them artists. Mrs. de Glehn is an 
American, and her husband an Austrian by birth, but for many years they 
lived in London. The picture was painted at the Villa Torlonia, formerly 
the Villa Conti, at Frascati. 


THE SOLITARY, or THE HERMIT 
Metropolitan Museum, New York 


Painted in 1908, in the Val d’Aosta. Exhibited at New English Art Club, 
1909; at the Venice International Exposition, 1910. 


A woodland scene, with the emaciated, nude figure of an old man reclin- 
ing among the rocks in the immediate foreground at the right. T'wo deer 
are near by. The sunlight falls through a network of branches. Signed. 


22.5) 


CATALOGUE OF JOHN SINGER SARGENT 


The picture reveals Sargent’s delight in the fantastic, and “explains the 
artist’s admiration for El Greco.” 

In such a work he is a modern of moderns, and in the broadest sense of the 
word a thorough impressionist. Not that he shows himself a disciple of 
Monet, or occupies himself with the broken touch or the division of tones; 
his method is as direct as that of Sorolla and his impressionism is of the 
same kind, a bending of all his energies to the vivid realization of the 
effect of the scene rendered as one might perceive it in the first flash of 
vision if one came upon it unexpectedly. The picture is better than Sorolla; 
it is better than almost any one. It is perhaps the most astonishing realiza- 
tion of the modern ideal, the most accomplished transcript of the actual 
appearance of nature that has yet been produced.—Kenyon Cox. 


RIGHT HON. ARTHUR JAMES BALFOUR, M. P. 

Exhibited at Royal Academy, 1908. 

Mr. Balfour stands, leaning his back against a marble-panelled wall, 

with his outstretched arm resting on a cornice, and one hand holding his 

coat. 

First Earl of Balfour and Viscount Trapain of Whittingehame, K.G., 

P.C., F.R.S., O.M., D.L. Statesman, author, Prime Minister from 1902 

to 1905. His published works include: ““A Defence of Philosophic Doubt,” 

“Essays and Addresses,” “The Foundations of Belief,” “Speeches on 

Fiscal Reform,” “Criticism and Beauty,” “Theism and Humanism,” 

““Essays Speculative and Political,” etc. He was a member of the British 

mission to the Washington conference on disarmament in 1921-1922. 
THE DEADLY PARALLEL 


It is a thankless task to construct a 
good serviceable mask for a man who 
refuses to keep behind it, and Mr. 
Sargent would have been wise to re- 
nounce in this instance the attempt to 
rear a plausible public figure with an 
imposing architectural background. A 
more intimate and humorous render- 
ing promised better success. 


The Athenaeum. 


‘The mastery of the whole thing is as- 
tonishing, and we ask ourselves could 
any one else now place the figure so 
surely and so convincingly before us, 
and do so without having to resort to 
the arts of exaggeration. . . . The 
historian of the future will have to 
thank Mr. Sargent for enabling him 
to realize not only the outward aspect 
but also something more than that, of 
the statesman it will be his duty to 
estimate and explain.— T he Spectator. 


228 


OIL PAINTINGS, STUDIES AND SKETCHES 


MISS MATHILDE TOWNSEND 

Mrs. Richard H. Townsend collection 
Exhibited at Corcoran Gallery biennial exhibition, Washington, 1908- 
1909; at Pennsylvania Academy exhibition, 1909. 
Awarded the Carol H. Beck gold medal of Pennsylvania Academy of the 
Fine Arts, 1908. 
In a breezy outdoor setting the three-quarters length figure of a smiling 
young lady is relieved against a background of sky and sea. White summer 
gown, décolleté, and fluttering draperies denote the action of a fresh wind. 
Characteristically clever and engaging. . . . Shows inimitable skill and 
dash in the rendering of the peculiar charm of young American woman- 


hood.—The Studio. 


PORTRAIT STUDY 
Exhibited at winter exhibition National Academy of Design, New York, 
1909-1910. Study of a swarthy Italian girl wearing a red shawl. 
That delicate modelling of form, that vivid personality, which are so 
characteristic of the work of the painter. A very lovely canvas, it stood out 
preéminently as the picture of the show.—Arthur Hoeber. 


JOSEPH PULITZER, ESQ. 

Exhibited at National Academy of Design, New York, 1908; at one hun- 
dred and fifth exhibition Pennsylvania Academy, 1910; at fourth exhibi- 
tion of contemporary oil paintings by American artists, Corcoran Gallery, 
Washington, 1912-1913; at Grand Central Galleries, New York, 1924. 
Mr. Pulitzer, born in Hungary, came to America as a boy, and settled in 
St. Louis, where he entered journalism. He rose rapidly, and soon became 
the owner of a newspaper. Moving to New York, he became the proprietor 
of the New York World. In 1887 he broke down from overwork, and 
lost his sight. In 1903 he endowed with $1,000,000 the Columbia College 
School of Journalism, with an agreement to give an additional million 
when the school should be in successful operation. 

Here everything, cane, cuff-links, watch chain, white cuff, wrinkled sleeve, 
plays into the effect of the keen-flashing personality. The body has weight, 
the planes of the face are clearly defined under the thin drapery of flesh, 
the imperfect eye in the shadow is a masterly description without either a 
hint of emphasis or a suspicion of elision—New York Times. 


229 


CATALOGUE OF JOHN SINGER SARGENT 


Of his men’s portraits none is better than the portrait of the late Joseph 
Pulitzer, Esq., an amazingly acute performance. . . . The exceptional 
portrait problem offered by Mr. Pulitzer’s astute and penetrating character 
was welcomed by Mr. Sargent with zest and ably solved. 


Forbes Watson in New York World. 


MRS. JOSEPH PULITZER 


Exhibited at National Academy of Design, New York, 1908; at fourth 
exhibition of contemporary paintings by American artists, Corcoran Gal- 
lery, Washington, 1912-1913. 


‘Three-quarters length, standing by a table, on which she rests her right 
hand, and on which are a vase of flowers, a string of pearls, a white scarf, 
etc. Satin dress, low bodice, with puffed short sleeves; dark dair dressed 
high, with pearl ornament; black velvet band around the neck. 


MISS HELEN BRICE 


Exhibited at National Academy of Design, New York, 1908; at Royal 
Academy, London, 1908; at Copley Society’s loan exhibition of portraits 
by living painters, Boston, 1914. 

Three-quarters length; standing; the figure in profile, but the face turned 
three-quarters front. White costume, with a long scarf draped over the left 
shoulder and back, the end falling over right forearm, where it is held 
by the right hand. 

The likeness of Miss Brice is characteristic of his nervous and stylistic 
mood. . . . The pose is in itself a revelation of personal traits. It is a 
rather baffling impression at first, but it becomes more and more a con- 
vincing document as it is studied.—Boston Transcript. 


H. R.H. THE DUKE OF CONNAUGHT AND STRATHEARR 


Exhibited at Royal Academy, London, 1908; at Royal Scottish Academy, 
Edinburgh, 1909. 


Is the perfection of an official portrait, a masterpiece of cold and decorous 
correctness.— The Athenaeum. 


Displays this facile painter in more restrained mood than is customary. 


The Studio. 


230 


OIL PAINTINGS, STUDIES AND SKETCHES 


DUCHESS OF CONNAUGHT 
Exhibited at Royal Academy, London, 1908; at Royal Scottish Academy, 
Edinburgh, 1909. 
With just a ripple of womanly emotion flecking the surface of its imper- 
turbability.— The Athenaeum. 


MISS ISME VICKERS 
Exhibited at New Gallery, London, 1908. 


Scarcely ever has he done a more brilliant piece of painting than in the 
costume and accessories of this portrait—_The Athenaeum. 


MISS LEWIS 
Exhibited at New Gallery, London, 1908. 


MRS. HUTH JACKSON 
Exhibited at Royal Academy, London, 1908. 


CHURCH OF SANTA MARIA DELLA SALUTE 

Johannesburg Gallery 
Exhibited at New English Art Club, London, 1910. 
Makes the marble of the “Salute” look as if covered with some horrid 
patent preparation.—Laurence Binyon. 
In this work and in similar sketches Mr. Sargent has shown a fine feeling 
for ancient buildings. . . . No painter since Turner has possessed so much 
understanding of the poetic qualities of stonework.—The Art Journal. 


CASHMERE 

Exhibited at Royal Academy, London, 1909. 

A little procession of young girls is moving up the hollow of a green glen. 
Each is robed in a white Cashmere shawl. One walks lost in thought; 
another looks out of the picture, clear-eyed, with the shy confidence of 
girlhood, under the soft folds of the shawl that frames her face. The rose- 
pink of little autumn crocuses shines faintly about their feet. 

It is youth, it is charm, it is life. It is not easy to remember a picture in 
which the firm grace and buoyant poise of adolescence are so perfectly and 
winningly expressed.—Laurence Binyon in Saturday Review. 


23 


CATALOGUE OF JOHN SINGER SARGENT 


We understand that Sargent’s sequence of seven lithe girlish figures en- 
titled Cashmere (“one shawl and a single face,” in the words of a Philis- 
tine observer) is a many-aspected portrait of a niece of the artist. 


Art Journal. 


LADY ASTOR 
Exhibited at Royal Academy, London, 1909. 


Three-quarters length; standing, with her hands behind her back. Her 
left side is toward the spectator, but her head is turned nearly full front. 
White dress, low neck, half-length sleeves; dark background. 


Before her marriage she was Nancy Langhorne of Virginia, one of the five 
Langhorne sisters who were famed for their beauty. She is now a British 
Viscountess, and a Member of Parliament. Her husband is one of the 
richest men in the world. 


‘Twenty-odd years ago: a Virginia belle, dancing all night in Richmond or 
riding to hounds in the Albemarle hills, playing a great deal, thinking none 
too much along conventional lines, yet always brilliant, alert, witty, with a 
mind that made up in natural flash what it lacked in serious training; 
altogether fascinating, temperamentally fit for endless social gayeties in 
town or gruelling outdoor sports in the country—a typical Southern girl of 
the leisurely, pleasure-loving type not unusual in the Old Dominion. To- 
day: a British Viscountess, wealthy beyond imagination, still beautiful, 
turning from the world’s pleasures with which she has been surfeited to 
seek new excitements in the field of British politics. . . using her old 
wit and fluency, and sometimes displaying her old temper, in a picturesque 
campaign among the rough elements of her neighborhood, still fascinating, 
still the same Nanny Langhorne who contributed to the fame of the five 
Langhorne sisters and made their beauty a byword.—New York Times. 


ISRAEL AND THE LAW 
Exhibited at Royal Academy, London, 1909. 
One of the series of six lunettes for the Boston Public Library decorations. 
It is now known as “Law.” 
The solemnly beautiful “Law,” a dignified pyramidal composition, has for 


its central figure Jehovah, upon whose countenance man may not look and 


220 


1 





JHE CADIES ALEXANDRA; MARY, AND THEO ACHESON 
Collection of the Duke of Devonshire 


Reproduced from the photogravure by courtesy of William Heinemann, Ltd., London 





OIL PAINTINGS, STUDIES AND SKETCHES 


live. Protected by the mantle of the Almighty, Israel studies the law that 
has been laid down for guidance of the chosen people. 


Frederick W. Coburn. 


EARL OF WEMYSS 
Exhibited at Royal Academy, London, 1909. 


Hugo Richard Wemyss Charteris, D.L., Baron Wemyss, Lord Elcho and 
Methel, Earl of March, Viscount Peebles, Baron Neidpath, eleventh Earl 
of Wemyss. 


‘The aspect of the man seems revealed by a flash of lightning, so keen and 
vivid is the presentation.— The Spectator. 


Mr. Sargent’s supremacy is maintained with his incisive “Lord Wemyss,” 
almost too startling in its effect of challenging life—Saturday Review. 


PORTRAIT OF A LADY 
Exhibited at Brooklyn Museum, 1909. 


‘Three-quarters length; standing; full front; in white costume with large 
bows of silk ribbon. The hands are folded together in front of the breast, 
holding a flower. 


MRS. WEDGWOOD 
Exhibited at New English Art Club, London, 1909. 


OLIVE GROVE 


Exhibited at New English Art Club, London, 1910; at Copley Gallery, 
Boston, 1917. 


DOLCE FAR NIENTE Brooklyn Museum 
Exhibited at New English Art Club, London, 1909. 
The foreground of this picture is occupied by the figures of three veiled 
women and three men reclining on the green banks of a stream in Cash- 
mere. The three figures at the right are engaged in a game of chess, and 
the three at the left recline in the indolent postures of the siesta. The color 
scheme is mainly composed of blue, green, yellow and white; and the 
lighting suggests the impression of a tropical noonday of sunshine and 
shadow. Signed but not dated. Canvas: 2414 x 36% inches. 


233 


CATALOGUE OF JOHN SINGER SARGENT 


A GARDEN AT CORFU 
Exhibited at Royal Academy, London, 1910. 


GLACIER STREAMS (THE SIMPLON) 

Mrs. J. Montgomery Sears collection 
Exhibited at Royal Academy, London, 1910; at Boston Art Club, 1912; 
at Boston Art Museum, 1915 and 1916; at Corcoran Gallery, Washing- 
ton, 1916-1917; at Knoedler Galleries, New York, 1918; at St. Botolph 
Club, Boston, 1922; at Grand Central Galleries, New York, 1924; at 
Art Institute of Chicago, 1924. 
A mountain scene of singular impressiveness and originality. It depicts the 
glitter of light on the sun-baked rocks, the dazzling rush of the streams, 
and the marvellous realization of the color of the mountainside at cloudless 
noon. 
Mr. Sargent has constructed and modelled every rock as carefully and as 
subtly as he would the head of a statesman or the face of a child. It is this 
basis of profound knowledge of form and design that enables the painter 
to give the more brilliant qualities of color and light force and enduring 
power.—H. S. in The Spectator. 
The intellectual quality of his art, his power of thinking out the meaning 
of what is before him, and of summing up exactly the results of his obser- 
vation, have rarely been so triumphantly asserted . . . and even more 
rarely has his hand responded so exactly to his mental purpose. 


The Studio. 


SIMPLON PASS James Parmelee collection 
Exhibited at Corcoran Gallery, Washington, 1914-1915. 


ALBANIAN OLIVE GATHERERS 
Exhibited at Royal Academy, London, 1910. 


Vitally interesting. . . . Amazing transcription of nature. . . . Conspic- 
uous success. — T he Studio. 


CYPRESSES AND PINES 


Exhibited at New English Art Club, London, 1910; at Royal Academy, 
London, 1914; at Grand Central Galleries, New York, 1924. 


234 


OIL PAINTINGS, STUDIES AND SKETCHES 


A luminous southern landscape, with the recumbent figure of a man on a 
slope near a grove in the foreground. 
More direct inspiration from nature, and less deliberate artifice. 

The Athenaeum. 
It is needless to say that Mr. Sargent has simplified everything with his 
marvellous touch, making apparently formless paint give the shapes and 
colors, and even suggest the smell, of a Mediterranean sun-baked slope. 


The Spectator. 


THE CHESS GAME Albert Sneck collection 
Exhibited at Grand Central Galleries, New York, 1924. 


A brilliant upright picture of a landscape with figures. By the side of a 
stream in the foreground are two figures, in Oriental garb, reclining on 
the ground, and playing a game of chess in the open air. 

Painted in Switzerland, 1910. 


PRINCESS NOURONIHAR 


Landscape in the Alps with three figures. The recumbent forms of the 
three women in the foreground, who are either sleeping or resting with 
closed eyes after a fatiguing climb, are covered with long cloaks or blan- 
kets. In the distance, a great range of huge, snow-covered mountains. The 
ladies appear to be the same models who appear and reappear in the Swiss 
motives of 1910 in the water colors belonging to the Boston Art Museum. 
The title does not clearly explain itself, but a suggestion as to its meaning 
may be derived from the fact that the Princess Nouronihar is a character in 
Beckford’s “Vathek”—the mischievous girl with whom Vathek falls in 
love. Just what the connection is it is difficult to determine, unless one 
hazards a guess that one of the dozing trio here has been reading aloud 
from the romance until it has taken effect as a soporific. Canvas: 2244 x 
28 inches. 


VESPERS 
Exhibited at Royal Academy, London, 1910. 


A scene in front of a church. The white pillars of a pergola and the church 
facade are contrasted with dark masses of cypress and olive trees and the 
figure of a black-robed priest. 


235 


CATALOGUE OF JOHN SINGER SARGENT 


Example of the effect which only the completely equipped painter can 
attain.— The Spectator. 

Not often have we the opportunity to see work which combines so surely 
vehement actuality with the highest type of artistic thought.—The Studio. 


ARMAGEDDON 
Exhibited at Royal Academy, London, 1911. 


One of the series of six lunettes for the Boston Public Library decorations. 
It is now known as “Gog and Magog.” 

The final cataclysm, the Old Testament conception of the anarchy of the 
elements what time Gog and Magog fell. . . . Young warriors piercing 
each other’s hearts; chariots and horses dropping through space; shards of 
ancient temples crumbling into dust; other direful happenings under 
baleful illumination from a portentous comet and the chill green rings 
of Saturn.—F rederick W. Coburn. 


Mr. Sargent, in his large decorative painting ‘““Armageddon,” has exercised 
his intelligence and his imaginative powers with remarkable results, and 
without conceding anything to the conventions by which this type of design 
is usually limited.—The Studio. 


RECONNOITERING Mrs. Richard T. Crane, Jr., collection 


RECONNOITERING 


Exhibited at New English Art Club, 1912; at Panama-Pacific Exposition, 
San Francisco, 1915; at Boston Art Museum, 1916 and 1925; at Cor- 
coran Gallery, Washington, 1916-1917; at St. Botolph Club, Boston, 
1922; at Grand Central Galleries, New York, 1924. 

The painting depicts a bearded elderly man, a landscape painter, sitting on 
a campstool, in the open, with his paint-box clasped in his arms, looking 
about him for a subject to paint. The scene is in Switzerland, the locality 
the summit or shoulder of an Alpine foothill commanding a wide and 
imposing mountain view, with a background of snow-capped peaks, soft- 
ened by the intervening atmosphere, against which the figure of the land- 
scapist is projected. His face is intent in expression, as his eyes patiently 
search the details of the scene before him. In this original and interesting 
motive the relations between the figure and the landscape are established 
with singular perfection. One of the fine points of the work is the immense 
interval of air separating the man in the foreground from the distant 


236 


OIL PAINTINGS, STUDIES AND SKETCHES 


mountain wall beyond him. Between the foreground and that grandiose 
distance a prodigious gulf intervenes. There is no ground for the supposition 
that the model in this picture represents Sargent himself, 


NONCHALOIR Mrs. Hugo Reisinger collection 
Exhibited at New English Art Club, London, 1911; at Corcoran Gallery, 
Washington, 1912. 

A small painting showing a lady reclining on a sofa, happily indolent, 
charmingly restful. Executed with characteristic spirit and dash, yet with 
a reserve and finish betokening maturity in art. 
Mr. Sargent, while pretending to be occupied with pose, and distribution of 
drapery, has given us one of those delightful representations of femininity 
with which he now likes to confute those who used to mark as a limitation 
on his part the inability to represent women with a Meredithian sympathy. 
The Studio. 
Perception and indefinable expression of inner content, and an extraor- 
dinary sense of the impalpable, as opposed to the blunt facts he is gener- 
ally credited with. Mr. Sargent is different from his following funda- 
mentally because of his responsiveness to the mysterious romance of atmos- 
phere, and (in his individual leisure moments) of personality. 
C. H. Collins Baker in Saturday Review. 


THE LOGGIA 
Exhibited at Royal Academy, London, 1911. 


This is a most original and interesting painting of a wide, lofty, spacious 
Italian loggia with a vaulted ceiling supported by classic columns and com- 
manding a view of pleasant grounds at the right. There are four figures. 
At the right of the foreground a lady is sitting, reading; only the upper 
part of her figure is visible. At the left, in the middle distance, another 
female figure, standing near the tall door of the house. Just beyond her, 
his back turned towards the observer, sits a man dressed in white, bending 
over some work. At the far end of the loggia, near a marble statue set upon 
a high pedestal, an artist, a young man, is busily painting a sketch. The 
pavement is of reddish tiles. At the left of the foreground, a green bench 
set against the wall. Vines clamber over the open side of the loggia. 


As a morceau the foreground figure is of unusual reticence and charm. 


The Athenaeum. 
237 


CATALOGUE OF JOHN SINGER SARGENT 


THE MARBLE QUARRY AT CARRARA 

Metropolitan Museum, New York 
Formerly in the Harris B. Dick collection. The picture represents several 
groups of men pulling the ropes used in moving the blocks of marble. The 
foreground is filled with broken stone; beyond the plateau whence the 
marble has been removed rises the steep wall of rock. A distant mountain 
peak is pink in the sunlight glow, while all the rest is gray and dull yellow. 
Illustrated in Bulletin of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, July, 1917. 


THE RIGHT HON. AND MOST REV. RANDALL THOMAS 
DAVIDSON, ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY 
Exhibited at Royal Academy, London, 1911. 
Three-quarters length; seated; in the robes of his exalted ecclesiastical 
office. 
D.D., D.C.L., LL.D., C.C.V.O., Prelate of the Order of the Garter; 
Royal Victorian Chain, etc. Author of “Life of Archbishop Tait,” “The 
Christian Opportunity,” “Captains and Comrades in the Faith,” “The 
Testing of a Nation,” “Charges, Sermons, etc.” 
‘Though it is perhaps not to be reckoned as quite one of his finest things, it 
is nevertheless a work that commands attention.— The Studio. 
His hand is tired, his interest flags, nor do we doubt that this lapse of in- 
terest is largely due, not to any decrease of vitality, but to a transference of 
energy to another sphere.-—T he Athenaeum. 


A WATERFALL Samuel T. Peters collection 
Exhibited at Royal Academy, London, 1911; at National Academy of 
Design winter exhibition, New York, 1913-1914; at one hundred and 
ninth exhibition Pennsylvania Academy, 1914. 

An upright canvas representing a wild rocky gorge in the Alps, where the 

waters of a mountain torrent are rushing impetuously over the ledges and 

leaping tumultuously down between the vertical walls of rock. Only a 

glimpse of the sky is visible at the top of the picture. 

Vividly literal, but undistinguished.—T he Athenaeum. 

Reveals him as a landscape artist of the first rank.—T he Studio. 

Seems rough and accidental. It is chiefly interesting for its color, and, as a 

whole, is not nearly so memorable as his “Glacier Streams” of last year. 
The Spectator. 

238 


OIL PAINTINGS, STUDIES AND SKETCHES 


BRINGING DOWN MARBLE FROM THE QUARRIES AT 
CARRARA 


Exhibited at Royal Academy, London, 1912. 


CYPRESSES 
Exhibited at Royal Academy, London, 1912. 


BREAKFAST IN THE LOGGIA Freer Gallery, Washington 
Exhibited at Royal Academy, London, 1912. 


The loggia depicted in this picture has been made the subject of several 
interesting compositions by Sargent. It is in Florence, and is a very charac- 
teristic feature of an old Italian palace, having a handsome vaulted ceiling 
and a pleasant, sunny outlook on a garden at the right. In the foreground 
is a table with a cloth laid all ready for breakfast, and two ladies enjoying 
the meal in the open air. An elderly lady in black sits at the left, and is 
seen in profile. Fronting us, on the farther side of the table, is a young and 
pretty woman in a white dress and hat, with her elbows on the table, look- 
ing towards her table companion and evidently talking to her. At the far 
end of the gallery or arcade is a marble statue of Venus. To the left, at 
both sides of the lofty doorway, the main entrance to the house, are green 
benches set against the white wall. From the right the sun shines into the 
loggia through the openings between the high pillars on the open side, strik- 
ing on the paved floor, the walls, and the little group at the breakfast table. 
It is a pleasant scene, and it is rendered con amore, with cheerful lumin- 
osity and gusto. Nothing could be more engaging than the effect of light 
and shade in this delightful place. Canvas: 2014 x 28 inches. 


MRS. ARTHUR HUNNEWELL 


Exhibited at Corcoran Gallery, Washington, 1912-1913; at Copley Hall, 
Boston, 1914. 


“A portrait of a real woman, simply and perfectly painted.” 


ROSE MARIE 


Exhibited at Royal Academy, London, 1913; at Panama-Pacific Exposi- 
tion, San Francisco, 1915; at Boston Art Museum, 1916; at Corcoran 
Gallery, Washington, 1916-1917. 


This painting of a vivacious and pretty young woman, with bright eyes, 


2.39 


CATALOGUE OF JOHN SINGER SARGENT 


scarlet lips slightly parted revealing her sound white teeth, is well finished 
so far as the head is concerned, but rather sketchy as to the cashmere shawl 
which is draped about her shoulders. It is a likeness of the artist’s niece, 
Rose Marie Ormond, and it is interesting to note that she was the model 
who posed for her distinguished uncle in at least six of the water colors 
belonging to the Boston Art Museum set, including “The Cashmere 
Shawl,” “The Green Parasol,” “At the Top,” ““The Tease,” “The Les- 
son,” and “Reading.” 

Rose Marie Ormond, born at Tunis, 1893, was killed at Paris, March 29, 
1918, in the Church of St. Gervais, during the bombardment by the Ger- 
mans. She was the wife of a son of André Michel, member of the Insti- 
tut de France and conservateur in the Museum of the Louvre; and the 
junior Michel was killed in battle, in 1914, near Soissons. Rose Marie was 
the daughter of Mrs. Ormond, née Violet Sargent, sister of the painter. 


OLIVE TREES AT CORFU Mrs. Breckenridge Long collection 
Exhibited at City Art Museum, St. Louis, 1917. 


Landscape with large ancient olive trees with their soft gray foliage and 
gnarled limbs forming an effective pictorial pattern against the sky. 


SIR HUGH LANE Municipal Gallery, Dublin 
Exhibited at Royal Society of Portrait Painters, London, 1913. 


Lane bequest, 1918. Sir Hugh Lane lost his life in the Lusitania disaster. 
He was best known as director of the National Gallery of Ireland, to which 
he left a valuable collection of pictures. 


CORNER OF CHURCH OF SAN STAE, VENICE 


This study of the interior of a Renaissance church, with a clutter of débris 
in the foreground, where repairs are in progress, is especially admirable for 
the drawing of the architecture, the naturalistic effects of light and dark 
on the stonework, and the fine feeling for the constructive logic of the 
monument. 


Signed and dated 1913. Canvas: 28 x 22 inches. 


STILL-LIFE STUDY 
Exhibited at Goupil Gallery, London, 1913. 


240 





Copyright, Curtis & Cameron, Boston 


MAJOR HENRY LEE HIGGINSON 


Courtesy of the Harvard Union 


af 





OIL PAINTINGS, STUDIES AND SKETCHES 


LAGO DI GARDA Edwards collection 
Exhibited at Copley Gallery, Boston, 1917. 


SPANISH STABLE Charles Deering collection 

Exhibited at Panama-Pacific Exposition, San Francisco, 1915; at Boston 
Art Museum, 1916; at Corcoran Gallery, Washington, 1916; at Grand 
Central Galleries, New York, 1924. 
There is a kinship between that . . . and a snapshot by Sorolla. With the 
difference that Mr. Sargent looks much further below the surface than his 
Spanish contemporary and gives you a far more intimate impression of the 
subject.—Royal Cortissoz. 


SPANISH GYPSIES 
Exhibited at Royal Academy, London, 1913. 


SPANISH GYPSY Louis B. McCagg collection 
Exhibited at Panama-Pacific Exposition, San Francisco, 1915. 


MOORISH COURTYARD James H. Clarke collection 


Exhibited at Grand Central Galleries, New York, 1924. 

A picturesque old patio in Spain, of a distinctly blond tonality, with white- 
washed walls, and a pale straw-colored foreground, where a couple of 
donkeys are standing. There is a glimpse of a balcony on three sides of the 
courtyard, with wooden railings, supported by massive columns with in- 
tricately carved capitals; and in the background an old disused doorway is 
surmounted by an arch of Moorish low reliefs in arabesques. 

Here is mastery of the medium in a degree that astounds the student of 
technique. . . . His vision is the finest. It gathers up all the encumbering 
details of a natural scene and reconstructs it synthetically with breadth and 
precision. . . . The color is white, a wan yellow, and a most delicious 
blue, a blue that fades almost into white and comes rippling back to robin’s- 
egg and slips quite out of reach of violet, leaving the picture inexpressibly 
pure and cool in quality—New York Times. 


WEAVERS Freer Gallery, Washington 
Exhibited at Royal Academy, London, 1913. 


241 


CATALOGUE OF JOHN SINGER SARGENT 


Described by one of the English critics as a “pictorial exclamation.” Vivid 
painting of figures in the shadow. Canvas: 22 1-16 x 28% inches. 


ROBERT MATHIAS, ESQ. 


Exhibited at National Portrait Society exhibition, Grosvenor Gallery, 
’ London, 1913. 

Thoroughly typical of the power by which his art has proved such a potent 

influence with the rising generation of painters.—T he Studio. 


THE RIALTO Elkins collection 


Exhibited at thirtieth annual exhibition of American paintings, Art Insti- 
tute of Chicago, 1917; at one hundred and twelfth exhibition Pennsyl- 
vania Academy, 1917. 


It represents a view of the Grand Canal, Venice, seen under the shadows 
of the broad arch of the bridge, with a glimpse of the facades of buildings 
in full sunlight at the right background. Several gondolas are passing to 
and fro; in one of them are the figures of two women in black returning 
from market with a heap of fresh vegetables aboard. 


HOSPITAL AT GRANADA Victoria National Gallery, Melbourne 
Exhibited at Royal Academy, London, 1913. 


A scene in the broad cloister of a sunny patio, with about a score of figures 
of convalescents taking the air. Near the foreground is a male patient lying 
on a stretcher, his figure being much foreshortened. The mellow sunlight 
falling from the right on the tiled pavement makes an interesting pattern. 
On the wall of the hospital at the left a number of old paintings are hung. 
At right, the arcade of round arches is supported by Doric columns. Aside 
from the human interest of the composition, it is a remarkable record of a 
luminous sunlight effect, painted with superlative directness and mastery. 
Bought by Agnew, at a sale at Christie’s, in May, 1924, for the Victoria 
National Gallery, Melbourne. Price, £2205. 


The figure on the stretcher in the foreground is beyond words poignant, 
and emotions of various kinds receive lively interpretation in the surround- 
ing groups. The brilliant sunshine of Spain streaming in through the loggia 
is as brilliantly dealt with. There is no risk in predicting the work to be an 
old master of the future-—A merican Art News. 


242 


OIL PAINTINGS, STUDIES AND SKETCHES 


HENRY JAMES National Portrait Gallery, London 


Exhibited at Royal Academy, London, 1914; at Panama-Pacific Exposi- 
tion, San Francisco, 1915; at Boston Art Museum, 1916. 


The portrait of Henry James is especially interesting for several reasons. 
In the first place, it is a very lifelike and impressive counterfeit present- 
ment of the personality of the man. Again, his recent death in England 
has, as is always the case, served to draw attention to his works and his char- 
acter, And, finally, no one can have forgotten that this is the painting that 
a fanatical militant suffragette slashed so badly in London about three 
years ago—not that she had any particular grudge against Mr. Sargent or 
Mr. James, but on general principles as a protest against the tyranny of 
man. The painting, which was seriously damaged, has been very success- 
fully and skilfully repaired. . . . Mr. James was an unusually interesting 
sitter. His head is the sort of a man’s head that painters like to tackle. It is 
a head that is full of the marks of intellect and imagination and refinement 
that we should expect to find in the author of ““The Portrait of a Lady,” a 
work of art equal to any of Sargent’s and perhaps even a greater. . . . The 
expression of the face is thoughtful, calm, and devoid of self-conscious- 
ness; the pose is one of unusual ease and naturalness, without going to an 
extreme of unconventionality. That is, it shows the unassuming dignity of 
a man of serious character, to whom all affectation is out of question. 


W.H. D. in Boston Transcript. 


LADY ROCKSAVAGE 
Exhibited at Royal Academy, London, 1914. 


Leaning so heavily as it does on a stereotyped pattern of artificial por- 
traiture of the Kneller type, its vivacity looks slightly fictitious. 


The Athenaeum. 

In the style of Lely, but with all the dexterities of modern times. 
The Spectator. 
TYROLESE INTERIOR Metropolitan Museum, New York 


Exhibited at Royal Academy, London, 1915. 


Painted in 1914. Three women and two men, with heads bent, are seated 
about a table set for a meal; strong sunlight comes from a window at the 
right, falling across the figures and the table, and striking the wall at the 


243 


CATALOGUE OF JOHN SINGER SARGENT 


left; in the shadow above the group is a shrine with a large crucifix between 
two devotional figures. Signed. 

Mr. Sargent saw his people, with comparative detachment, as interesting 
passages of tone and color. It is as though he gained a glimpse of an in- 
stant in their lives, a moment severed from its past, unrelated to a future. 
They sit there, in the sun and shadow, quite unconscious of attention, quite 
uncommunicative and reticent.—C. H. Collins Baker. 


SAN GEREMIA 
Exhibited at Royal Academy, London, 1914. 


A Venetian sketch, which the critic of The Spectator pronounces “‘so fresh 
and so individual in vision as to leave a lasting impression on the mind.” 


TWO SAILING BARGES IN DOCK AT SAN VIGILIO 
Exhibited at San Francisco, 1915; at Royal Academy, London, 1919. 
A little harbor on the Lake of Garda with a breakwater and the two ves- 
sels moored to a wharf in the foreground; glancing water of transparent 
blue-green tone; at left a warehouse, and in the background a ridge with 
cedars against the sky. 
The actual conception, if not the standpoint, is wholly original. All the 
same, the aesthetic sense remains unsatisfied; we are left to seek consola- 
tion in the supreme skill of the master in the rendering of these trans- 
parent waters and this massive masonry, and to divine his enjoyment in the 
solution of difficult pictorial problems. 


Sir Claude Phillips in Daily Telegraph. 


THREE BOATS IN THE HARBOR OF SAN VIGILIO 


Another picture of the diminutive harbor on the Lake of Garda, with its 
breakwater. A big fish-trap lies on the stone wharf in the foreground. A 
sail boat and two small rowboats with nets aboard lie at anchor. Moving 
reflections on the rippling water. 


SKETCHERS | H.P. Carolan collection 
Exhibited at Royal Academy, London, 1914; at Panama-Pacific Exposi- 
tion, San Francisco, 1915. 

There was some talk in London about the purchase of this picture, under 


244 


OIL PAINTINGS, STUDIES AND SKETCHES 


the Chantrey bequest, for the Tate Gallery, but it was discovered that a 
clause in the bequest provided that pictures eligible for purchase must be 
painted in Britain, and as this canvas was painted elsewhere, its considera- 
tion was out of the question. 


A MOUNTAIN LAKE, AUSTRIAN TYROL 


Landscape showing a sequestered spot in the highlands where a tarn is sur- 
rounded by blocks of ice and a dense pine forest. 


MASTER AND PUPILS Boston Art Museum 


Exhibited at Royal Academy, London, 1915; at Panama-Pacific Exposi- 
tion, San Francisco, 1915; at Copley Gallery, Boston, 1922; at Grand 
Central Galleries, New York, 1924. 


Landscape with figures. In the foreground is the stony bed of an almost 
dried-up stream, and in the background a dense forest. On the farther 
bank of the stream there is a little grassy ridge, on the farther slope of 
which four figures are seen, that is, their heads and shoulders—a man, 
whose back is turned to us, and who is busily sketching the forest, and three 
young women who are intently watching the progress of the work. The 
color is lively and agreeable, and in general handling the work is not unlike 
some of the artist’s water colors. 


It was in the summer of 1914, only a short time before the beginning of 
the European War, that Sargent and some of his friends, among them 
Adrian Stokes, R.A., left London for a vacation trip to the Austrian Tyrol. 
When the war broke out, August 1, the travellers were unable for a while 
to leave the Tyrol, owing to the lack of passports and money, and during 
the time of enforced detention Sargent painted several landscapes, one of 
which was the ‘Master and Pupils.” 

Mr. Sargent’s vivid study, “Master and Pupils,” is another splendid 
achievement.— The Studio. 


The canvas is painted with the consummate skill of this famous artist, 
apparently with exceeding ease and dexterity, the dense growth and mossy 
river-bank being rich in color, and the great number of small stones and 
rocks in the foreground drawn and characterized as only the painter of the 
masterly watercolors at the Museum of Fine Arts can do. 


Boston Transcript. 


24.5 


CATALOGUE OF JOHN SINGER SARGENT 


INTERIOR—THE CONFESSION Desmond FitzGerald collection 
Exhibited at Grand Central Galleries, New York, 1924. 
An upright painting of the interior of a rural church, with the figure of a 
woman in black, hooded, kneeling at the grating of a confessional, her 
arms resting on the railing. A monk in gray robes is bending over, his face 
hidden behind the grating, to listen to the confession. On the wall above 
the group is a large sculptured crucifix. It is evident that this motive was 
found in the Tyrol. 


EARL CURZON OF KEDLESTON 
Exhibited at Royal Academy, London, 1915. 
George Nathaniel Curzon, Earl Curzon of Kedleston, Viceroy and Gov- 
ernor-General of India, Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, leader of 
the House of Lords, member of the Imperial War Cabinet, president of 
the Air Board, chancellor of Oxford University, etc.; K.G., G.C.S.L, 
G.C.LE., M.A., P.C., F.R-S.,_D.C.L.,-LO.D., 9] Piso een 
statesman, traveler, author. Residences: Hackwood, Basingstoke; Kedles- 
ton, Derby; Montacute House, Somerset. Author of “Russia in Central 
Asia,” ‘“‘Persia and the Persian Question,” ‘‘Problems of the Far East,” 
“Lord Curzon in India,” “Principles and Methods of University Reform,” 
“Modern Parliamentary Eloquence,” ““War Poems and other translations,” 
“Subjects of the Day,” ‘Tales of Travel.” 


A parade portrait and a work which has been generally set down as com- 
monplace. The energetically characterized head has the appearance of 
being overmodelled, and treated with manifest effort. On the other 
hand, the handling of the gold-embroidered costume of dark blue robes has 
all of the painter’s customary ease and certainty. 

A vigorous, sel f-assertive portrait.—Sir Claude Phillips. 


It has a living character and a certain shrewdness, obstructed by slipshod 
technique.—C. H. Collins Baker. 


FRANCIS JOHN HENRY JENKINSON 


Exhibited at Royal Academy, London, 1915; at ninetieth exhibition Royal 
Scottish Academy, Edinburgh, 1916. 


This portrait of the librarian to the University of Cambridge was received 
by the English critics with unusual warmth of praise, as may be inferred 


246 


OIL PAINTINGS, STUDIES AND SKETCHES 


from the following excerpts: ‘““The best picture in the Academy.” “In 
every way worthy of the artist.” “Has a singularly arresting power.” 
“Would confer distinction on any exhibition.” “The features and hands 
are well characterized.” 


Unobtrusive, painted almost in a monochrome, this is the pathetic present- 
ment of one whose countenance is “sicklied o’er with the pale cast of 
thought.” The artist’s conception explains not only the individual and the 
moment, but—what is much rarer with Mr. Sargent—the type to which his 
sitter belongs. What he especially emphasizes here is the man of letters, the 
man of lofty and leisurely thought. Absolute momentariness is for this 
once abandoned, and the artist aims far higher. He seeks to place his sitter; 
not only, or principally, to give with concentrated force and vivacity one 
moment of physical life, but to present the entire idiosyncracy, to give a 
summing-up of psychical life and character. 


Sir Claude Phillips in Daily Telegraph 


MOUNTAIN GRAVEYARD (GRAVEYARD IN THE TYROL) 
Collection of Robert Treat Paine, 2d 
Exhibited at Royal Academy, London, 1915; at Boston Art Museum, 
1916; at the Grand Central Galleries, New York, 1924. 
Painted in 1915. Vivid greens in foreground and blue mountains in the 
distance. The rustic cemetery is crowded with singularly ugly memorials, 
many of them grotesquely carved wooden crosses. ‘There are two or three 
figures of laborers in peasant costumes. Illustrated in Bulletin of Museum 
of Fine Arts, Boston, June, 1916. 
In the foreground we have a village “abode of peace” (Friedhof), flimsy, 
garish, pathetic in its insufficiency, that the searching sunlight so pitilessly 
lays bare. The background is closed in by a huge wall of dolomite rock, in 
its grandeur, in its impassiveness, suggestive of duration, of disdain, too, 
for the excrescences imposed by man upon nature. A brilliant tour de force 
is the painting of the graveyard, the poor, miserable crosses and monuments 
of which are emphasized here and there by a violent flash of light. 
Sir Claude Phillips in Daily Telegraph. 


TYROLESE CRUCIFIX Desmond FitzGerald collection 
Exhibited at Royal Academy, London, 1915; at Knoedler Gallery, New 
York, 1916; at loan exhibition in Copley Gallery, Boston, 1917. 


247 


CATALOGUE OF JOHN SINGER SARGENT 


The home of a humble wood-carver, a maker of wooden religious images 
for churches and wayside shrines, is shown in the foreground. On the out- 
side stairs that lead to the upper floor of the house the artisan is standing, 
with a crucifix held in his left hand, while with his right hand he manipu- 
lates the knife. Just behind him and a little way further up on the stairs are 
his three children—a little girl who is peeping between the balusters, and 
two urchins who are engaged in an impromptu tussle. Overhead is a great 
projecting section of the wide eaves of the house. On the exterior wall 
hangs a hideous crucifix, doubtless the cherished masterpiece of the wood- 
carver’s life. Behind the corner of the building, a valley and Alpine pas- 
tures in the distance. 


MOUNTAIN SHEEPFOLD IN THE TYROL 
L.C. Ledyard collection 


One of the artist’s notable landscapes, painted in 1915 from sketch made in 
1914. It represents a wide valley with undulating surface, shut in by steep 
and thickly wooded foothills, down the precipitous sides of which several 
torrents leap from ledge to ledge, now shining silvery white in the sunlight, 
and again hidden by the trees. In the foreground, a flock of sheep, some of 
them white and some black, in their fold; two or three other sheepfolds are 
seen in the middle distance. 


Signed and dated 1915. Canvas: 28 x 36 inches. 


LAKE O’HARA Fogg Art Museum of Harvard University 

Exhibited at the Copley Gallery, Boston, 1917; at Grand Central Gal- 
leries, New York, 1924; at the Art Institute of Chicago, 1924; at Al- 
bright Gallery, Buffalo, 1924. 
One of Sargent’s most important landscapes. A spectacular view in the 
Canadian Rocky Mountains painted in 1916. The singular beauty of the 
lake in the foreground, with its emerald-green waters, is finely contrasted 
with the dark cliffs beyond the farther shore and the terminal moraine of a 
great glacier, whose snows, partly in shadow and partly glittering in full 
sunlight, fill the upper part of the composition. No sky is visible. The eyes 
of the observer are likely to go first to the lake, then to the cliffs, and finally 
to rest with a deep sense of satisfaction on the dazzling snow and ice of the 
glacier, so beautifully set off by the passage of bluish shadow. One receives 
the impression of dizzy heights beyond the upper limits of the picture. 


248 





Copyrighted, 1924, Grand Central Art Galleries, New York 


MRS. FISKE WARREN AND HER DAUGHTER 
[ Mother and Daughter | 


Warren Collection 





OIL PAINTINGS, STUDIES AND SKETCHES 


It is a characteristically brilliant canvas and a remarkable success viewed 
merely as an attempt to describe a typical mountain scene in that wonderful 
mountain region.—Boston Transcript. 


It is a picture impressive in the bigness of its handling, restful in its sense 
of wakeful peace, compelling in its beauty of color. And, as is always the 
way with Sargent, immensely deceptive in the ease with which it is all 
accomplished. . . . It shows the artist in the deeper enjoyment and calmer 
peace that such a scene of pure beauty can induce. 


Christian Science Monitor. 


ROCKY MOUNTAIN GROUP Thomas A. Fox collection 
Exhibited at the Copley Gallery, Boston, 1917; at St. Botolph Club, 


Boston, 1922; at one hundred and eighteenth exhibition, Pennsylvania 


Academy, 1923; at Grand Central Galleries, New York, 1924. 


This is a camp scene, which, as a subject, would have delighted the heart of 
Winslow Homer. In the foreground a guide is sitting on a log, paring 
potatoes for the dinner which is to be cooked over the camp fire some yards 
away, in front of the two tents, through whose canvas sides the sunlight is 
shining. Against the solemn and beautifully rich background of the pine 
forest the wavering column of thin blue smoke from the camp fire rises, 
forming with the deep verdant foliage a marvellous color contrast. 


The sequestered peace and the freedom of the place, far from the haunts 
of men, the lure of the wilderness, and the joys of roughing it, are all 
suggested with much gusto in this work.—Boston Transcript. 


INTERIOR OF TENT Mrs. John Elliott collection 
Exhibited at the Copley Gallery, Boston, 1917. 


Another souvenir of the painter’s sojourn at the Lake O’Hara camp in the 
Canadian Rockies, in 1916. This was a most difficult subject, and an un- 
promising one, and yet the artist has succeeded in making it unusually 
interesting and amusing. At the right, on a camp bed, a man is reclining on 
his side, reading a book; at the left is a jumbled heap of blankets, clothing, 
etc., in the dim light of the interior. There is little else to be seen except a 
lamp fixed to a post, a pair of heavy shoes, and a few pine boughs. The 
problem of the light in all probability was what attracted the painter, and 
the very difficulty of the theme. 


249 


CATALOGUE OF JOHN SINGER SARGENT 


CARL 


Sketch portrait of a guide in the Canadian Rocky Mountains, painted in 
1916. 


TWO GIRLS FISHING Cincinnati Art Museum 


On the bank of a mountain stream two pretty girls, bareheaded, one dressed 
in white, the other in black, sit on rocks, holding their rods and patiently 
watching for a bite. Just behind them is a bowl of bait and a soft hat. The 
positions of both girls are the same, and the repetition of lines gives a 
piquant and pleasing character to the design. The open-air effect is well 
indicated. Painted during the journey through the Canadian Rockies and 
the Glacier National Park, Montana, in the summer of 1916. 


TWIN FALLS Gardner collection, Fenway Court 


A scene in the Yoho Valley, Canadian Rocky Mountains, painted in the 
summer of 1916. The water tumbles in a vertical column from an unseen 
source, and a great cloud of fine silvery spray is blown to the left. 


ARCHERS 
Exhibited at Royal Academy, London, 1916. 


Design for a part of the decoration of the rotunda of the Museum of Fine 
Arts, Boston. 


Conceived in the true spirit of cameo.— The Athenaeum. 

In masterly ease of execution fit to rank with anything of the kind. It is a 

group of nude archers on a cloud in a beautiful blue background. There is 

no detail of flustering draperies to worry the eye as you look up. It is as 

gay and satisfying as a coral cloud against the blue sky.—The Spectator. 
BACCHANAL 

Exhibited at Royal Academy, London, 1916. 


Design for a part of the decoration of the rotunda of the Museum of Fine 
Arts, Boston. 


Recalls the glib accomplishment of such a French painter as Gervex. 
The Athenaeum. 
PRESIDENT WOODROW WILSON 
National Gallery of Ireland, Dublin 
Exhibited at Corcoran Gallery, Washington, 1918; at Metropolitan Mu- 


250 


OIL PAINTINGS, STUDIES AND SKETCHES 


seum, New York, 1918; at Pennsylvania Academy, 1918; at Boston Art 
Museum, 1918; at Cleveland Art Museum, 1918; at Art Institute of 
Detroit, 1918; at Art Institute of Chicago, 1918; at Royal Academy, 
London, 1919. 


‘The President is shown seated in a leather-covered armchair, at the side of 
a table covered with papers. His face is turned slightly toward his right. 
He wears gray trousers, a black frock coat, a waistcoat with a white edging, 
and a bluish-gray four-in-hand tie. The pose and facial expression suggest 
a public man interrupted in his pressing official duties, and somewhat tired. 
The right hand rests on the arm of the chair, and the left hand hangs 
loosely over the edge of the other chair arm. The figure is relieved against 
a reddish-brown background. 


Painted for the benefit of the British Red Cross Society and the Order of 
the Hospital of St. John of Jerusalem, in response to the offer of Sir Hugh 
Lane, late director of the National Gallery of Ireland, to pay £10,000 for 
the work. 


Very marked divergences of opinion are to be noted in respect to the merits 
of this portrait. Ingenious theories have been advanced to explain the rea- 
sons why it is not all that was expected and all that it should have been. 
Aside from being handicapped by insufficient time for complete observa- 
tion, it may well be that the painter’s consciousness that he was dealing with 
one of the most famous men of the period had a disadvantageous effect. It 
is not improbable that the juste milieu may eventually be found to lie mid- 
way between the extremes of approbation and condemnation. 


THE DEADLY PARALLEL 


Most noteworthy portrait. . . . Asa who would penetrate to the very 


study of character and as a piece of 
masterly accomplishment, takes rank 
among the best things that Sargent 
has done.—T he Studio. 


A well-arranged and satisfactory 
likeness of President Wilson, who 
here appears outwardly calm, yet alert 
and watchful. . . . Good as is this 
counterfeit presentment, it must fail 
to excite any great interest in those 


depths of a personality. 
Sir Claude Phillips. 


The canvas will rank among his mas- 
terpieces.,.. « < 1e: catcnesall of; the 
elusive mobility of the Wilson face. 
. . . Itis no pale, cold scholar that is 
presented to us, no mere intellect; 
rather an intensely human whose in- 
finite reserve power of charm and 
force lies just below the surface. . . . 


251 


CATALOGUE OF JOHN SINGER SARGENT 


Sargent has shown us the President’s 
character and personality in this por- 
trait, one of the noblest of all his 
works.—Washington Herald. 


Undistinguished. . . . Might almost 
be taken for a school piece... 
Does not strike one as an authentic 
Sargent.—Saturday Review. 


A concensus of opinion from compe- 
tent critics . . . indicates that they 


do not regard the work of the distin- 
guished artist in this portrait . . . as 
showing any notable degree of inspir- 
ation such as one might be led to ex- 
pect as coming from the brush of an 
artist so skilful in presentation of 
character.—Eugene Castello. 


This portrait is so weak, it was almost 
a scandal to the young inquirers in 


art.—Henry McBride. 


TWO PORTRAITS OF JOHN D. ROCKEFELLER 


Exhibited at Metropolitan Museum, New York, 1918; at Pennsylvania 
Academy, 1918; at Boston Art Museum, 1918; at Art Institute of 
Chicago, 1918; at Detroit Art Museum, 1918; at Allbright Art Gallery, 
Buffalo, 1918; at Cleveland Art Museum, 1918; at Corcoran Gallery, 


Washington, 1919. 


The unusual circumstance of there being two portraits of the same man 
painted by the same artist gives an interesting opportunity to compare the 
two moods or phases of the man. In one portrait he is somewhat indif- 
ferent, wary, and doubtful; in the other he is alert, wide-awake and 
interested, The artist has not intended to say what he thinks of his sitter; 
that is not a part of his functions. Yet, of course, being the painter that 
he is, he reveals a thing or two regarding the psychology of Mr. Rocke- 
feller. The technical side of the two canvasses is full of interest. The 
heads and hands are rendered with a decision, confidence, power and 
completeness that leaves little to be desired. . . . The means are adapted 
to the end, and the observer has the satisfaction of seeing an arduous 
undertaking performed with consummate skill and ease. The drawing of 
the hands is especially to be noticed. These bony and capable looking 
hands are intensely individual, and they are as expressive of character as 


the face itself.—Boston Transcript. 


Great distinction of workmanship is achieved. . . . He has a benevolent 
face in which is revealed the symbol of power lurking behind the lines of 
the firmly modelled lips, still controlled despite his advanced years, and 
_ which also victoriously shines forth from the clear blue eyes. The portrait 


252 


OIL PAINTINGS, STUDIES AND SKETCHES 


is a remarkable psychological document written with his brush by a 
remarkable painter.— Academy Notes, Buffalo. 


DANIEL J. NOLAN Corcoran Gallery, Washington 

Exhibited at Copley Gallery, Boston, 1917; at Worcester Art Museum, 
1918; at Boston Art Museum, 1919. 
The sitter, a handsome American of Irish descent, was an employé of the 
Copley Gallery, Boston, and had been able to give such assistance to 
Sargent as to merit his gratitude, which took the form of painting this 
sketch portrait. “Dan” Nolan is shown in his working clothes, with his 
mop of curly hair, his sunny smile, his brown eyes, and his expressive 
type of Celtic face. 


GASSED Imperial War Museum, London 
Exhibited at Royal Academy, London, 1919. 


A tragic impression of the great war; poignant description of the horrors 
of modern strife, treated with reserve and restraint. A slowly moving 
procession of blinded men passing across the wide canvas like a frieze 
of martyrs. The figures all have bandaged eyes, and each man as he gropes 
his way towards the rear touches the shoulder of the man preceding him 
to keep his direction on the wooden causeway. In front and at the side of 
the group is the R. A. M. C. orderly, who turns quickly to call out an 
order to the wounded men. Although dealing with masses of human 
figures, the composition has been kept free from any appearance of crowd- 
ing, and an extraordinary sense of the dignity of human suffering stoically 
borne permeates the various groups into which the design has been divided. 
Leaves a deep impression on account of the artistic and moral qualities 
being united into a greatly moving whole. The thing that makes the 
picture so impressive is its impersonality; it is thus that Piero della 
Francesca treated battles —H. 8S. in The Spectator. 

An example of the way in which a work of art can be made to interest 
the widest public without losing the right to be held in high estimation by 
men of deep zsthetic conviction. He has recorded vividly and dramati- 
cally an incident irresistibly appealing in its sentiment and calculated to 
stir the deepest emotions of the people, but he has at the same time made 
it the motive for a composition of monumental dignity, in which the 
student of art will at once recognize the hand of a master of the painter’s 


craft.—The Studio. 
253 


CATALOGUE OF JOHN SINGER SARGENT 


CATHEDRAL OF ARRAS IN AUGUST, 1918 
Imperial War Museum, London 


Exhibited at Royal Academy, 1919. 

A superb piece of work, faultlessly composed and painted. The cathedral 
of Arras, which replaced a much earlier structure, was a handsome and 
well-proportioned but somewhat impersonal edifice of the latter half of 
the eighteenth century. As its ruins appeared in the summer of 1918, it 
embodied, in the opinion of one London writer, the “‘spirit of beauty in 
destruction”; the shattered edifice, it was added, had been endowed with 
“much of that grandeur of departed beauty which clings about the relics 
of ancient Greece.”’ Another reviewer pronounced the conception so cold 
and objective that, though it commanded a measure of admiration, it 
failed to excite enthusiasm. 


AMERICAN TROOPS GOING TO THE LINE 
Sir Philip Sassoon collection 
Painted “somewhere in France,” 1918. 


THE ROAD Boston Art Museum 


Sketch painted near the Front in Northern France; a scene in the World 
War; helmeted troops in khaki uniforms with guns over their shoulders 
marching along a road towards the spectator, followed by mounted troops; 
behind them, at the left, a tank and a Red Cross camion; overhead flut- 
tering strips of cloth fastened to a rope which is stretched across the road 
and tied to the bare, splintered tree trunks at either side; slanting rays of 
sunlight come through a break in the thick clouds. 

Canvas: 15 x 261% inches. Purchased 1919. 

In connection with his work in France for the British Government, Mr. 
Sargent made various sketches, one of which the Museum has been fortu- 
nate enough to secure. The cardinal impression received from “The 
Road” is one of surprise at the disproportion between its effect and its 
dimensions. Small as it is, it has elements that almost always connect with 
compositions on a much greater scale. . . . The picture is almost in mono- 
chrome, yet so true that one at once accepts the scene as an actuality. “The 
hue of the earth seems to have absorbed every fragment of other color. The 
handling of the momentary or swiftly passing action is of a precision that 
one has no time to question. The picture is inspiring in its energy, reaching 


254 


OIL PAINTINGS, STUDIES AND SKETCHES 


its intention with nothing to be added and nothing to be removed—a 
verdict only admissible in the presence of a consummate accomplishment. 
Bulletin of Museum of Fine Arts. 


SHOEING CAVALRY HORSES AT THE FRONT 
Exhibited at Grand Central Galleries, New York, 1925. 
One of the war episodes painted in France, in 1918. Sent by the artist 
from his London studio to New York in the spring of 1925, a short time 
before his death, as his third contribution to the Association of Painters and 
Sculptors, in accordance with the requirement by virtue of which each 
artist member was to present a picture each year for a term of three years. 


MRS. PERCIVAL DUXBURY AND DAUGHTER 
Exhibited at Royal Academy, London, 1919. 
Strikingly original as a composition. The mother, as here depicted, a lady 
somewhat stern of aspect, stands erect and motionless, her little daughter 
pressing affectionately against her skirts. The color scheme is mainly of 
grays and blacks, with accents of pale green. 


GENERAL SIR G. H. FOWKE 
Exhibited at Royal Academy, London, 1921. 


CHARLES H. WOODBURY 

Exhibited at eighteenth international exhibition Carnegie Institute, Pitts- 
burgh, 1921; at eighth biennial exhibition Corcoran Gallery, Washington, 
1921; at Art Institute of Chicago, 1922; at National Academy of Design, 
New York, 1923; at Detroit Institute of Art, 1924; at Cleveland Art 
Museum, 1924. 
Bust length; very loosely brushed in; but with considerable subtlety; a 
striking likeness of the eminent American marine painter. 
In this work Sargent displays his accustomed power of technique, and, 
while the design element is quite lacking, it compels attention by its 
brilliant realism.—Cleveland Art Museum Bulletin. 
Deserving to rank with his best character studies. Not only does Sargent 
show himself a past master in the handling of his medium, he reveals a far 
more precious quality, that of being able to penetrate below the surface and 
to give us the force and strength of the man whom he portrays. 

Anna Seaton-Schmidt. 


255 


CATALOGUE OF JOHN SINGER SARGENT 


HOLKER ABBOTT Tavern Club, Boston 
Exhibited at St. Botolph Club, Bee 1922. 


COUNTESS OF ROCKSAVAGE : 
Exhibited at Royal Academy, London, 1922. 


Three-quarters length; standing; full front. The lady wears a very 
elaborate costume of purple and black, with richly embroidered panel all 
down the front of the dress, and a flaring collar in the Elizabethan style, 
and long ropes of pearls falling from the neck to the waist, the jewels 
being of Cinquecento fashion. In her hand she holds a single purple 
cyclamen. 


He may have painted in earlier days with a more sensational brilliancy 
than here, but we can remember no portrait from his brush that is marked 
by so charming a reposefulness, so exquisite a distinction. 


Sir Claude Phillips in Daily Telegraph. 


SOME GENERAL OFFICERS OF THE GREAT WAR 


National Portrait Gallery, London 
Exhibited at Royal Academy, London, 1922. 


This very large portrait group of twenty-two emer of the British 
General Staff during the Great War was given the place of honor in the 
Royal Academy exhibition of 1922. The work was done on a commission 
from Sir Abe Bailey, Bart., for presentation to the nation. With one or 
two exceptions, the English critics declared that the painter had been unable 
to accomplish the miracle of making such a task other than commonplace 
and perfunctory. There is nothing in the portrait group to relieve the vast 
expanse of khaki uniforms, with the exception of the Field Marshals’ 
batons carried by French and Haig, and these sink into insignificance in 
the drab monotone of uniforms. 

We stand before this immense canvas wholly disconcerted by its pale, 
anaemic aspect, by the absence of vigor and accent that it betrays. ‘There 
is nothing here of a living rhythm, no serious attempt at a caesura of the 
almost unbroken line of great military personages who, impassive—we 
had almost said disdainful—stand side by side yet isolated from one 
another, and from the spectator. As we see them here, they are but pale 
ghosts (we will not say visions) of the heroes who so gloriously played 


256 





Courtesy Grand Centrut Art Galleries, New York 


MR. AND MRS. JOHN W. FIELD 


Courtesy of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts 





OIL PAINTINGS, STUDIES AND SKETCHES 


their parts in saving the country and the world. . . . The plain fact is 
that Mr. Sargent has undertaken a herculean task, and has failed where 
success would have been impossible. 


Sir Claude Phillips in Daily Telegraph. 


GENERAL SIR WILLIAM BIRDWOOD 
Australian National Gallery, Melbourne 


Original study for one of the portraits of the twenty-two officers of the 
Great War in the group painted for the British Government. 


SIR EDWARD H. BUSK 
Exhibited at Royal Academy, London, 1923. 


The most impressive portrait in the exhibition, small and low-toned, 
utterly devoid of bravura, it intrigues as no other work at the Academy 
succeeds in doing.—K. P.in American Magazine of Art. 


PRESIDENT A. LAWRENCE LOWELL Harvard University 
Exhibited at Grand Central Galleries, New York, 1924. 
This portrait of the President of Harvard University was begun in 1923 
and finished in 1924. It is hung in the collection of portraits in University 
Hall. President Lowell was formerly professor of the science of govern- 
ment, and is the author of several important works on the subject. 
Three-quarters length; in collegiate gown, seated in the president’s chair 
which came into the possession of the college during the presidency of 
Edward Holyoke, 1737-1769; grasping a scroll in one hand, while the 
other hand rests on the arm of the chair. A close likeness and a dignified 
work, showing some evidence of effort. It was given to the University by 
members of the board of overseers. 
Its extraordinary faithfulness as a portrait, its joining of vividness and 
dignity, its presentation of its subject as he appears in the venerable presi- 
dent’s chair at Sanders Theatre on Commencement day, with all the 
background of authority yet with the most personal and lifelike of coun- 
tenances, would have won for it in the days of Latinity some such desig- 
nation as Praeses locuturus. Posterity will never know just how truly and 
happily it depicts President Lowell as his contemporaries have known him; 
but posterity, if it happens to look back at these pages, may take our word 
for it that Mr. Sargent, in his masterly employment of line and color, has 


257 


CATALOGUE OF JOHN SINGER SARGENT 


transferred to canvas the man himself. Seldom does the painter more 
helpfully anticipate the historian and the biographer. 
Harvard Alumni Bulletin 


DUKE OF YORK 


GEORGE A. MACMILLAN, ESQ. 


Exhibited at Royal Academy, London, 1925. Three-quarters length; full 
face; in evening dress; holding an open book in his hands. It presents the 
well-known publisher and scholar in his character as secretary of the 
Society of Dilletanti. 


THE MARCHIONESS CURZON OF KEDLESTON 
Exhibited at Royal Academy, London, 1925. Three-quarters length; full 


face; seated; sumptuous costume of white silk, with triple chain of large 
pearls about the neck, long pendant earrings, and bracelets. Not so astound- 
ing as some of his earlier successes, but characteristically sober and facile. 


PRINCESS MARY AND HER HUSBAND, VISCOUNT LASCELLES 


Unfinished. The work upon which the artist was at work in April, 1925, 
when death overtook him. The royal couple are said to have sat to him for 
a short time on April 14, the day before that on which his death occurred. 


ARTIST SKETCHING R. T. Crane, Jr., collection 
Exhibited at Corcoran Gallery, Washington, 1923-1924. 
The scene is a wood interior, where, at the right of the foreground, a 
painter, sitting on a camp stool, before a sketching easel, on which his 
canvas rests, holds his brush in his right hand and his palette in his left, 
while he looks intently off a little to the left at his chosen subject. He is 
dressed in white from hat to shoes, and he has placed himself and his 
outfit on the flat top of a great square rock, near which are the gray trunk 
of a fallen tree, a tiny brook, and a tangle of undergrowth. In the back- 
ground: are pine trees, and here and there a glimpse of the sky through 
openings in the foliage. 


GIRL FISHING 


Single figure of a young woman in white standing at the brink of a large 
sheet of water, possibly a lake; her back turned to the spectator. She is 


258 


OIL PAINTINGS, STUDIES AND SKETCHES 


holding a pole to which is attached a small net, which she is lowering into 
the shallow water near the shore. Pitched in a high key, but the absence of 
cast shadows would appear to indicate a cloudy day. Several ducks are 
swimming about not far from where the fisherwoman is standing. 


Canvas: 19% x 28 inches. 


TWO GIRLS IN WHITE DRESSES George Eastman collection 
Exhibited at Corcoran Gallery, Washington, 1914-1915. 


Two girls in white summer frocks sprawling comfortably upon the cliffs; 
no sky nor sea is visible, but the picture is strongly suggestive of the prox- 
imity of the ocean. The attitudes of the figures are finely drawn, and one 
of the critics pronounced the work “‘one of the very best things that Sargent 
has ever painted.” 


ELEONORA DUSE 


[LADY WITH WHITE walsrcoaT | 


A rapidly made portrait study, in which the personality of the sitter is 
suggested by the most stenographic methods. 


The face is quite tranquil, so that other faces look uneasy in comparison, 
and the eyes under their sombre lids have, in this brief sketch, the most 
direct look in the world. The great tragedian gives in her portrait, as in 
her art, the impression of an incomparable sincerity, and faces us from the 
yonder side of the common human custom of intercepted, veiled, retreating 
or hesitating looks. Alice Meynell. 


MRS. CHARLES B. ALEXANDER 


Three-quarters length; seated on a sofa; full front. She wears a white 
satin dress with embroidery about the neck and on the skirt; a white 
ostrich-feather boa is thrown loosely about the shoulders. T'wo strings of 
pearls about the neck. A fan in her right hand. Pearl earrings. In the 
background, a marble bust on a fluted pedestal. 


Daughter of Charles Crocker of San Francisco, and wife of a distin- 
guished New York lawyer. Donor of Alexander Hall, Princeton 
University. 


259 


CATALOGUE OF JOHN SINGER SARGENT 


HON. JOSEPH H. CHOATE 


Harvard Club, New York 


Diplomatist. United States Ambassador to Great Britain, 1899-1905. 
Noted as a public speaker. Former president Harvard Club. Honorary 
degrees from Harvard, Amherst, Cambridge, Oxford, Edinburgh, Glas- 


gow, Yale, Pennsylvania, Williams, Union, St. Andrew’s. 


Author of 


addresses on Abraham Lincoln, Admiral Farragut, Rufus Choate, etc. 


SKETCH PORTRAIT OF MADAME GAUTREAU 


Fenway Court, Boston 


A small sketch in oils of the figure of a lady in evening dress, seated at a 
table on which roses are strewn, and extending her right hand, in which she 
holds a tall wineglass, as if she were about to drink a toast. In fact the 
sketch is sometimes called ““The Toast.” 


MRS. WALTER RATHBONE BACON 


LADY BROOKE 

JOHN CADWALLADER 
RALPH CURTIS 

MISS BEATRIX CHAPMAN 
WILLIAM J. FLORENCE 


American comedian, 1831-1891. 


MISS ETTA DAUB 
MISS HELEN DAUB 
MISS KATY DAUB 
MISS GRACE DAUB 
FRAU von GRUNELIOS 
GERTRUDE KINGSTON 


MRS. RICHARD MORTIMER 


MISS MORRIS 
FRANCOIS FLAMENG 


French historical painter. 


260 


Mrs. H.G. Chapman collection 


Marchesa di Viti di Marco collection 
Mrs. Thomas Spicer collection 
Mrs. John Bennet collection 


Mrs. Theodore Lisling collection 


OIL PAINTINGS, STUDIES AND SKETCHES 
MADAME Y 
SPANISH LANDSCAPE 


FOREST POOL Howard Lipsey collection 
MRS. PETER GERRY Mrs. Richard Townsend collection 
LANDSCAPE Mrs. Henry White collection 
FOUNTAIN, BOLOGNA Sir Philip Sassoon collection 
MISS HAVEN Mr. and Mrs. J. W. Haven collection 
THE COURTYARD Mrs. E. H. Harriman collection 
MRS. JAMES T. FIELDS Boylston Beal collection 
CAPRI Mr. and Mrs. Francis Nielsen collection 
PORTRAIT H. McK. Twombly collection 


PORTRAIT DE JEUNE GARCON 


DOROTHY G.M. Williamson collection 


Half-length portrait of a child in white muslin dress with a large white 
hat. Her right arm and hand are shown foreshortened, resting on the arm 
of the chair in which she is sitting. 


SLUDY OF A STAIRCASE 


A narrow upright study, showing a long outdoor flight of cement stairs in 
perspective, looking up. The stairs are enclosed by white walls, partly in 
shadow. At the top, a glimpse of an arbor or pergola, with vines. 

Canvas: 3214 x 18% inches. 


RESTING 
Outdoor study of a young lady in a wide-brimmed straw hat, reclining 
against a haystack, with her eyes closed. Her arms are folded. Half-length. 
Sunlight effect, but the face is shaded by the hat brim. Signed. Canvas: 
814 x 10% inches. 


261 


CATALOGUE OF JOHN SINGER SARGENT 


DOCTOR JOSEPH JOACHIM 


Famous violinist and composer. This is one of the famous portraits in the 
annals of music. . . . Sargent never wrought to better purpose or effect 
than when he was paying tribute to the men whose music he had enjoyed 


and loved.—J. P. Collins. 


AUGUSTE RODIN Luxembourg Museum, Paris 
The most eminent sculptor of modern times. 


Half-length; full face. The long beard, the melancholy expression of the 
face, and the far-away gaze of the wide-open eyes are noticeable. 


M. pbE FOURCAULT Luxembourg Museum, Paris 
MRS. EDWARD DODD 


SAN GIOVANNI EVANGELISTA 
Study of the rather bare interior of an Italian church. 
Signed. Canvas: 2244 x 28% inches. 


STUDY OF A MAN 


School study of the head of a young model with dark eyes, dark curling 
hair, and tiny moustache. 


Canvas: 22 x 17% inches. 


MRS. COTTON 


Pastel study of a head in profile. The sitter faces to the right. The face 
and neck are well finished, but the hair and dress are loosely sketched in 
with a few sweeping lines of the colored chalks. 


Canvas: 24% x 193% inches. 


GIRL IN WHITE MUSLIN DRESS 
Exhibited at Corcoran Gallery, Washington, 1923-1924. 


HEAD OF A YOUNG GIRL 
Portrait sketch of the artist’s sister, Violet Sargent. 


262 


OIL PAINTINGS, STUDIES AND SKETCHES 


PORTRAIT OF A, LADY J.P. Morgan collection 
Exhibited at Corcoran Gallery, Washington, 1916-1917. 


CHOCORUA 
Exhibited at St. Botolph Club, Boston, 1922. 


PORTRAIT OF A LADY Mrs. William Jay Schieffelin collection 
Exhibited at Corcoran Gallery, Washington, 1916-1917. 


PORTRAIT OF P.A.J. WHEN A CHILD Augustus Jay collection 
Exhibited at Corcoran Gallery, Washington, 1916-1917. 


AN ARBOR Sir Philip Sassoon collection 
Exhibited at the Goupil Salon of British Art, London, 1924. 


LORD MILNER 


Exhibited at exhibition of Twenty Years of British Art, Whitechapel 
Galleries, 1910. 


ROSE MARIE AND REINE ORMOND 


Mrs. Francis Ormond collection 


FRANCIS AND CONRAD ORMOND UMr;. Francis Ormond collection 
MRS. FRANCIS ORMOND ~— Gardner collection, Fenway Court, Boston 


COLONEL W. WINDLE PILKINGTON, V. D. 
Corporation of St. Helen’s collection 
Exhibited at Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool. 


MRS. WHITELAW REID 


MISS VIOLET SARGENT AND MISS FLORA PRIESTLEY 


Mrs. Francis Ormond collection 


MISS VIOLET SARGENT Miss Emily Sar gent’s collection 
[ MRS. ORMOND | 


263 


CATALOGUE OF JOHN SINGER SARGENT 


MISS VIOLET SARGENT Miss Emily Sargent’s collection 
Head. 


MISS ETHEL SMYTH 

COUNTESS SZCCHEYNI 

G. M. WILLIAMSON 

H. GALBRAITH WARD 

WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS 

LADY MILLICENT HAWES Pennsylvania Museum 


LAMPLIGHT STUDY 


Exhibited at Sargent loan exhibition, Copley Hall, Boston, 1899; at New 
English Art Club, London, 1905. 


An interior with the figure of a lady; red paper on the walls and red 
shades on the candles. 


LAMPLIGHT STUDY OF A LADY SINGING 
Exhibited at Sargent loan exhibition, Copley Hall, Boston, 1899. 


CANDLE-LIGHT STUDY: THE GLASS OF CLARET 
Exhibited at Sargent loan exhibition, Copley Hall, Boston, 1899. 


PROFILE OF A CAFE GIRL 
Exhibited at Sargent loan exhibition, Copley Hall, Boston, 1899. 


MRS. ROGER D. SWAIM Mrs. Leverett Bradley collection 
Exhibited at Boston Art Museum, 1919. 


MRS. C. D. BARROWS 
Exhibited at Boston Art Museum, 1916. 


264 





Courtesy Grand Central Art Galleries, New York 


LADY SASSOON 
Collection of Sir Philip Sassoon, London 





OIL PAINTINGS, STUDIES AND SKETCHES 


PORTRAIT OF A MAN Isaacs collection 
Exhibited at Boston Art Museum, 1916. 


PORTRAIT OF A GIRL Isaacs collection 
Exhibited at Boston Art Museum, 1916. 


CONTESSA CHIERICATI Ehrich Galleries 
TROUT STREAM 


A rapid mountain torrent rushing between rocks, with swirling eddies; at 
the right of the foreground is the figure of a fisherman. 


MID-OCEAN IN WINTER 


WATER COLORS 


This catalogue of watercolors is necessarily incomplete. The four Ameri- 
can art museums possessing the most important collections of Sargent’s water- 
colors, those of Brooklyn, Boston, New York, and Worcester, offer to the 
amateur a representative choice of the works in this medium, including the 
most brilliant and varied examples. These public collections will be found 
listed here in their entirety. A few of the many specimens in private collec- 
tions are also catalogued. 

The series of eighty-three watercolors in the Museum of the Brooklyn 
Institute of Arts and Sciences is the largest group in any one institution. This 
collection is made up of the following works: 


SANTA MARIA DELLA SALUTE 
Exhibited at New York, 1909; at Boston, 1909; at Pittsburgh, 1917; at 
Cleveland, 1917; at Toledo, 1918; at Detroit, 1918; at Minneapolis, 
1918; at Milwaukee, 1918; at St. Louis, 1918; at Rochester, 1918; at 
Boston, 1921; at Paris, 1923. 
Nothing more appetizing than his rendering of the famous Santa Maria 
della Salute has ever been done in watercolors.—T he Studio. 


FROM THE GONDOLA 


_ Exhibited at New York, 1909; at Boston, 1909; at Carnegie Institute, 
Pittsburgh, 1917; at Cleveland, 1917; at Toledo, 1918; at Detroit, 


265 


CATALOGUE OF JOHN SINGER SARGENT 


1918; at Minneapolis, 1918; at Milwaukee, 1918; at St. Louis, 1918; at 
Rochester, 1918. 

No one has ever equalled him in the translation of Venice into terms of 
watercolor painting.—Royal Cortissoz. 


THE BRIDGE OF SIGHS 
Exhibited at Carfax Gallery, London, 1908; at New York, 1909; at 
Boston, 1909; at Pittsburgh, 1917; at Cleveland, 1917; at Toledo, 
1918; at Detroit, 1918; at Minneapolis, 1918; at Milwaukee, 1918; at 
St. Louis, 1918; at Rochester, 1918; at Boston, 1921. 


WHITE SHIPS 
Exhibited at New York, 1909; at Boston, 1909; at Pittsburgh, 1917; at 
Cleveland, 1917; at Toledo, 1918; at Detroit, 1918; at Minneapolis, 
1918; at Milwaukee, 1918; at St. Louis, 1918; at Rochester, 1918; at 
Boston, 1921; at Paris, 1923. 


ZULIEKA 


Exhibited at New English Art Club, London, 1907; at New York, 1909; 
at Boston, 1909; at Pittsburgh, 1917; at Cleveland, 1917; at Toledo, 
1918; at Detroit, 1918; at Minneapolis, 1918; at Milwaukee, 1918; at 
St. Louis, 1918; at Rochester, 1918. 


ARAB STABLE 
Exhibited at New English Art Club, London, 1904; at New York, 1909; 
at Boston, 1909; at Pittsburgh, 1918; at Cleveland, 1918; at Toledo, 
1918; at Detroit, 1918; at Minneapolis, 1918; at Milwaukee, 1918; at 
St. Louis, 1918; at Rochester, 1918. 


IN SWITZERLAND 


Exhibited at New English Art Club, London, 1906; at New York, 1909; 
at Boston, 1909; at Pittsburgh, 1917; at Cleveland, 1917; at Toledo, 
1918; at Detroit, 1918; at Minneapolis, 1918; at Milwaukee, 1918; at 
St. Louis, 1918; at Rochester, 1918. 


IN A HAY LOFT 
Exhibited at New York, 1909; at Boston, 1909; at Pittsburgh, 1917; at 
Cleveland, 1917; at Toledo, 1918; at Detroit, 1918; at Minneapolis, 
1918; at Milwaukee, 1918; at St. Louis, 1918; at Rochester, 1918. 


266 


OIL PAINTINGS, STUDIES AND SKETCHES 


SPANISH SOLDIERS 


Exhibited at New English Art Club, London, 1904; at New York, 1909; 
at Boston, 1909; at Pittsburgh, 1917; at Cleveland, 1917; at Toledo, 
1918; at Detroit, 1918; at Minneapolis, 1918; at Milwaukee, 1918; at 
St. Louis, 1918; at Rochester, 1918. 


STAMBOUL 
Exhibited at New York, 1909; at Boston, 1909; at Pittsburgh, 1917; at 
Cleveland, 1917; at Toledo, 1918; at Detroit, 1918; at Minneapolis, 
1918; at Milwaukee, 1918; at St. Louis, 1918; at Rochester, 1918. 


LA RIVA DEGLI SCHIAVONI 


Exhibited at New York; 1909; at Boston, 1909; at Boston, 1921; at 
Paris, 1923. 


THE PIAZZETTA 
Exhibited at New York, 1909; at Boston, 1909 and 1921. 


BEDOUIN CAMP 
Exhibited at New English Art Club, London, 1905; at Carfax Gallery, 
London, 1908; at New York, 1909; at Boston, 1909 and 1921; at Paris, 


1923. 


BEDOUIN WOMEN 
Exhibited at Carfax Gallery, London, 1908; at New York, 1909; at 
Boston, 1909 and 1921; at Paris, 1923. 


SYRIAN GYPSIES 
Exhibited at New York, 1909; at Boston, 1909 and 1921. 


BEDOUINS 
Exhibited at New English Art Club, London, 1905; at Carfax Gallery, 
London, 1908; at New York, 1909; at Boston, 1909 and 1921; at 
Paris, 1923. 


BLACK TENT 
Exhibited at New York, 1909; at Boston, 1909 and 1921; at Paris, 1923. 


207 


CATALOGUE OF JOHN SINGER SARGENT 


ARAB GYPSIES IN A TENT 
Exhibited at New York, 1909; at Boston, 1909 and 1921; at Paris, 1923. 


IN A LEVANTINE PORT 
Exhibited at New English Art Club, London, 1907; at New York, 1909; 
at Boston, 1909 and 1921; at Paris, 1923. 


BOYS BATHING 
Exhibited at New York, 1909; at Boston, 1909 and 1921; at Paris, 1923. 


IN A MEDICI VILLA 
Exhibited at New York, 1909; at Boston, 1909 and 1921; at Paris, 1923. 


A TRAMP 
Exhibited at New York, 1909; at Boston, 1909 and 1921; at Paris, 1923. 


AT CHIOGGIA 
Exhibited at New York, 1909; at Boston, 1909. 


THE GIUDECCA 
Exhibited at New English Art Club, London, 1908; at New York, 1909; 
at Boston, 1909. 


TARRAGONA 
Exhibited at New York, 1909; at Boston, 1909. 


IN VENICE 


Exhibited at Carfax Gallery, London, 1908; at New York, 1909; at 
Boston, 1909. 


BASE OF A PALACE 
‘Exhibited at New York, 1909; at Boston, 1909. 


RIGGING 
Exhibited at New York, 1909; at Boston, 1909. 


BEHIND. THE SALUTE 
Exhibited at New York, 1909; at Boston, 1909. 


268 


OIL PAINTINGS, STUDIES AND SKETCHES 
ALL’ AVE MARIA 
Exhibited at New York, 1909; at Boston, 1909. 


VENETIAN BOATS 
Exhibited at New York, 1909; at Boston, 1909. 


PALAZZO LABBIA 


Exhibited at Carfax Gallery, London, 1908; at New York, 1909; at 
Boston, 1909. 


THE GRAND CANAL 
Exhibited at New York, 1909; at Boston, 1909. 


Summer wanderings in his beloved Italy. . . . Delightful sketches of 
Venetian palaces, churches and canals.—The Studio, 


BEDOUIN MOTHER 
Exhibited at Carfax Gallery, London, 1908; at New York, 1909; at 
Boston, 1909. 
The following group of forty-eight watercolors was exhibited at New 
York in 1909 and in Boston the same year. 


MELON BOATS 
GROUP OF BOATS 
NARNI 

BOLOGNA FOUNTAINS 
VILLA TORLONIA 

AT FRASCATI > 
SALMON RIVER 

A MOUNTAIN STREAM 
OLIVES AND CYPRESSES 
GIRGENTI 

BOBOLI 

TOMB AT TOLEDO 
BIVOUAC 


269 


CATALOGUE OF JOHN SINGER SARGENT 
PALAZZO CLERICE 
EGYPTIAN WATER JARS 
MENDING A SAIL 
BAALBEC 
RAS-EL-AIN 
GALILEE 
FROM MOUNT TABOR 
GOATHERDS 
GOURDS 
POMEGRANATES 
PORTUGUESE BOATS 
OLIVE TRUNK 
BOATS DRAWN UP 
A FALUCHO 
MAJORCA 
PORT OF SOLLER 
UNLOADING PLASTER 
IN SICILY 
QUELUZ 
TANGIER 
OPUS ALEXANDRINUM 
PAPYRUS 
BOBOLI GARDENS 
ARANJUEZ 


270 


OIL PAINTINGS, STUDIES AND SKETCHES 
AT POMPEII 
PERSEUS BY NIGHT 
MOUNTAIN FIRE 
EL GHOR 
ETNA 
LA GRANJA 
AFTER VAN DER HELST 
GATTAMELATA 
PERSEUS 
SPANISH SOLDIERS 
A NOTE 
HILLS OF GALILEE 


Exhibited at New English Art Club, London, 1907; at New York, 1909; 


at Boston, 1909. 


Powerfully grouped and not without largeness of style-—The Athenaeum. 
The lovely unctuous sweep, the intelligently placed mass, so full of com- 
prehension—all those famous attributes of the admired Sargent are dis- 


cernable at a glance.—T he Studio. 


Next in size to the Brooklyn Museum series is the collection of about fifty 
watercolors in the Boston Art Museum, acquired in 1912. Forty-five of these 
works were painted during a period of three years, in Venice, Genoa, Flor- 
ence, Carrara, at Corfu, and in Switzerland. They are the outcome of the 
summer vacation tours when the painter left his London studio to travel 


abroad. The titles follow. 


VENICE—LA SALUTE 


Exhibited at New English Art Club, London, 1907; at exhibition of 


American Art in aid of the French Red Cross, Paris, 1923. 


271 


CATALOGUE OF JOHN SINGER SARGENT 


VENICE—LA DOGANA 
Shows the top of the tower of the customhouse with its gilded statue 
against the blue sky. 


VENICE—I GESUATI 


VENICE—UNDER THE RIALTO 
Exhibited at exhibition of American Art in aid of the French Red Cross, 
Paris, 1923. 
He renders the variations of the light and the shadow, the transparency 
and the reflections, with an ability that is the outcome of a sensitive and 
receptive eye and a love of the work.—Jean Guiffrey. 


GENOA—UNIVERSITY 
Exhibited at exhibition of American Art in aid of the French Red Cross, 
Paris, 1923. 


FLORENCE—BOBOLI GARDEN 
CORFU—CYPRESSES 
CORFU—LIGHTS AND SHADOWS 
CORFU—THE TERRACE 
CORFU—A RAINY DAY 


AVALANCHE TRACK 
FRESH SNOW 


THE GREEN PARASOL 
Exhibited at New English Art Club, London, 1910. 


A most amusing and charming series of figure pieces in which the doings 
of two or three ladies on a vacation among the Alps are reported. 
. . . This set might be called the Adventures of the Green Parasol, as 
that article of use and adornment appears and reappears from time to time 
in these playful sketches from Switzerland.—W. H. D. 


MOUNTAIN BROOK 
272 





Copyright, The Art Institute of Chicago 


THE FOUNTAIN 


ae 





OIL PAINTINGS, STUDIES AND SKETCHES 
READING 


CRAGS 
Exhibited at New English Art Club, London, 1910. 


THE TEASE 


Exhibited at exhibition of American Art in aid of the French Red Cross, 
Paris, 1923. 


CHALETS 


THE LESSON 


Exhibited at exhibition of American Art in aid of the French Red Cross, 
Paris, 1923. 


THE FOREGROUND 


mie iti. TOP 


Exhibited at exhibition of American Art in aid of the French Red Cross, 
Paris, 1923. 


SHALLOWS. 


THE GARDEN WALL 


Exhibited at exhibition of American Art in aid of the French Red Cross, 
Paris, 1923. 


TORRE GALLE WINE BAGS 
TORRE GALLE ; 
VINES AND CYPRESSES 
THE CASHMERE SHAWL 


DAPHNE 


Exhibited at New English Art Club, London, 1911; at Paris, 1923. 
_A marble statue is relieved partly against the sky and partly against the 
dark cypress trees of an Italian garden. 


273 | 


CATALOGUE OF JOHN SINGER SARGENT 


What other painter, we ask, could have made us feel the sky reflecting 
marble so simply and so beautifully? —The Spectator. 


THE BALUSTRADE 


Exhibited at New English Art Club, London, 1907; at exhibition of 
American Art in aid of the French Red Cross, Paris, 1923. 


LA BIANCHERIA 


Exhibited at New English Art Club, London, 1911; at exhibition of 
American Art in aid of the French Red Cross, Paris, 1923. 

The distinguishing characteristic of these paintings is the skill, or rather 
the art, with which Mr. Sargent has dealt with the play of light in them, 
whether it is on the facade of a building . . . or simply on the washing 
hanging on the line in the sun.—Jean Guiffrey. 


VILLA FALCONIERE 


MARLIA 
Exhibited at New English Art Club, London, 1911. 


MARLIA FOUNTAIN 
CARRARA QUARRY 


The strange marble quarries of Carrara, where the processes of moving 
the blocks are to-day the same that they were in the time of the Romans. 


Bulletin of the Museum of Fine Arts. 
CARRARA WORKMEN 


MONSIEUR DELVILLE’S QUARRY 


Exhibited at exhibition of American Art in aid of the French Red Cross, 
Paris, 1923. 


QUARRY 
TRAJAN’S QUARRY 


Extraordinary series of luminous and highly original studies of the marble 
quarries of Carrara and vicinity, in which the snow-white blocks of marble 
in sunlight and in shadow are depicted in a wonderful way.—W. H. D. 


274 


OIL PAINTINGS, STUDIES AND SKETCHES 


LIZZATORI I 
Exhibited at exhibition of American Art in aid of the French Red Cross, 
Paris, 1923. 


LIZZATORI II 

WET QUARRIES 

PNPASOUARRY 

MARMO STATUARIO 

LITTLE QUARRY 
FLORENCE—BOBOLI FOUNTAIN 


The subjoined five titles are those of watercolors acquired by the Boston 
Art Museum after the close of the World War. Two of them were 
painted in the North of France and Belgium in 1918, and two in Portugal. 


TENTS—BAILLEULVAL 

TWO SOLDIERS—POPERINGHE 

THE SHADOWED STREAM—FRANCE 
SANTIAGO DE COMPOSTELA—PORTUGAL 
EVORA—PORTUGAL 


The series of eleven watercolors belonging to the Worcester Art Museum 
were painted at Mr. Charles W. Deering’s Italianate mansion in Florida, 
known as the Villa Vizcaya, a white palace on the shore of a lagoon sur- 
rounded by spacious parks and terraces, and having near by an artificial 
basin reminiscent of Venice. The set dates from 1917. The titles follow. 


PALMS 
Exhibited at Pittsburgh, 1917; at Cleveland, 1917; at Toledo, 1918; at 
Detroit, 1918; at Minneapolis, 1918; at Milwaukee, 1918; at St. Louis, 
1918; at Rochester, 1918; at Boston, 1921; at Paris, 1923; at New 
York, 1924. 
The trees are silhouetted against a deep blue southern sky. 


275 


CATALOGUE OF JOHN SINGER SARGENT 


THE BASIN, VIZCAYA 


Exhibited at Boston, 1921; at Paris, 1923; at New York, 1924. 
Delicate in color and glowing with faint opalescent hues. 


THE TERRACE, VIZCAYA 
Exhibited at Boston, 1921; at Paris, 1923; at New York, 1924. 


THE LOGGIA, VIZCAYA 


Exhibited at Pittsburgh, 1917; at Cleveland, 1917; at Toledo, 1918; at 
Detroit, 1918; at Minneapolis, 1918; at Milwaukee, 1918; at St. Louis, 
1918; at Rochester, 1918; at Boston, 1921; at Paris, 1923; at New 
York, 1924. 

One of the features of this picture is the rich blue curtains which are 
blown about by the sea breeze. 


THE PATIO, VIZCAYA 


Exhibited at Pittsburgh, 1917; at Cleveland, 1917; at Toledo, 1918; at 
Detroit, 1918; at Minneapolis, 1918; at Milwaukee, 1918; at St. Louis, 
1918; at Rochester, 1918; at Boston, 1921; at Paris, 1923; at New 
York, 1924. 

Another alluring glimpse of the Deering home in Florida. 


BOATS AT ANCHOR 


Exhibited at Boston, 1921; at Paris, 1923; at New York, 1924. 
Shows several white boats and a blue sky mirrored in the rippling water. 


DERELICTS 


Exhibited at Pittsburgh, 1917; at Cleveland, 1917; at Toledo, 1918; at 
Detroit, 1918; at Minneapolis, 1918; at Milwaukee, 1918; at St. Louis, 
1918; at Rochester, 1918; at Boston, 1921; at Paris, 1923; at New 
York, 1924. 


Depicts some old boats half submerged in the waters of a sluggish stream. 


MUDDY ALLIGATORS 


Exhibited at Boston, 1921; at Paris, 1923; at New York, 1924. 
A bit of sandy shore and still, opaque water, on which a beautiful glow of 


276 


OIL PAINTINGS, STUDIES AND SKETCHES 


light is reflected. By the water’s edge great chalk-white alligators lie 
dozing, as motionless as if carved in stone. 


BATHERS 
Exhibited at Boston, 1921; at Paris, 1923; at New York, 1924. 
Three Negroes loll in the shade and dip their red-brown bodies in the 
transparent water. The tropical noonday sun is so intense that it penetrates 
through the water to the clean sand underneath. In the distance the glare 
upon the water is so brilliant that a part of one of the figures in the fore- 
ground is little more than a dark brown silhouette against it. 


SHADY PATHS, VIZCAYA 
Exhibited at Boston, 1921; at Paris, 1923; at New York, 1924. 
A glimpse into the mysterious depths of the semi-tropical woodland. 


THE POOL 
Exhibited at Pittsburgh, 1917; at Cleveland, 1917; at Toledo, 1918; at 
Detroit, 1918; at Minneapolis, 1918; at Milwaukee, 1918; at St. Louis, 
1918; at Rochester, 1918; at Boston, 1921; at Paris, 1923; at New 
York, 1924. 
Vivid suggestion of the changefulness of nature, with the shifting alter- 
nations of sunlight and shadow. 


The eleven watercolors listed below belong to the permanent collection of 
the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. 


THE OLD SHED 
Exhibited at Paris, 1923. 
In these sketches you have the entire accomplishment of all that was aimed 
at. In a quite literal sense they are complete and perfect. You cannot 
imagine them better done-—Kenyon Cox. 


ESCUTCHEON OF CHARLES V 
Exhibited at Boston, 1921; at Paris, 1923. 
This painting represents the carved lunette in the upper part of the foun- 
tain in the garden of the palace of Charles V at Granada. The tablet below 
is inscribed: Imperator Caesar Karolus Quinto. 


277 


CATALOGUE OF JOHN SINGER SARGENT 


IN SPHEVGENERADIPE 


Exhibited at Boston, 1921; at Paris, 1923. 

The garden of the Generalife at Granada, on the hill near the Alhambra. 
Three ladies, seated, with dense foliage in the background. One of them is 
making a sketch. 


SPANISH FOUNTAIN 


Exhibited at Boston, 1921; at Paris, 1923. 

In the foreground the stone basin of a fountain is upheld by three crouch- 
ing female figures. A stream of water flows from the mouth ofa grotesque, 
and falls into the basin. A wall forms the background, with blue and white 
tiles at the base and a dull red wall above. 


THE GIUDECCA 


Exhibited at Boston, 1921; at Paris, 1923. 

One of the islands of Venice. View of a canal spanned in the middle 
distance by a small bridge. In the foreground at the left is a building 
before which a barge and a smaller boat are anchored. Other buildings are 
seen at the left beyond the bridge. 


VENETIAN CANAL 


Exhibited at Boston, 1921; at Paris, 1923. 
In the foreground, at right and left, are houses, boats at anchor, and 
figures. A stone bridge in the middle distance; beyond, a red church with 


tower. 


BOATS 


Exhibited at Boston, 1921; at Paris, 1923. 
A white boat with sail hoisted and a small dark boat are anchored in a cove. 
Rocky shore at left, with dark pines beyond. 


IDLE SAILS 


Exhibited at Boston, 1921; at Paris, 1923. 
A boat with lowered sails is anchored in the foreground. Beyond is a hilly 
shore with distant mountains at the right. 


27D 


OIL PAINTINGS, STUDIES AND SKETCHES 


SIRMIONE 
Exhibited at Boston, 1921; at Paris, 1923. 
A village on the point of a promontory at the southern end of Lake Garda. 


Marshy foreground, with the end of the promontory dimly seen across the 
lake. Dark clouds at the horizon. 


TYROLESE CRUCIFIX 
Exhibited at Boston, 1921; at Paris, 1923. 


A wayside shrine with the crucifix protected by a small pointed roof. At 
the left is a gnarled tree trunk, and at the right the sky. 


MOUNTAIN STREAM 
Exhibited at Boston, 1921; at Paris, 1923. 


The stony shore of a pool, with the figure of a youth bathing; his flesh 
gleaming in the sunlight. 


Note—From this point in the catalogue of watercolors the works are 
chiefly those in private collections, with the exception of small groups in 
Fenway Court, Boston, the Imperial War Museum, London, etc. 


IN TUSCANY C.M. Loeffler collection 
Exhibited at Boston Art Club, 1921; at St. Botolph Club, Boston, 1922. 


A MOUNTAIN STREAM C.M. Loeffler collection 
Exhibited at Boston Art Club, 1921; at St. Botolph Club, Boston, 1922. 


THE BROOK 


Exhibited at New English Art Club, London, 1907; at Boston Art Club, 
1921. 


MRS. JOHN L. GARDNER Gardner collection, Fenway Court 


Painted during the last year of her life, 1924. The head and figure are 
swathed in white. A brilliant sketch painted in an hour and a half. 


The intangible quality of a great woman has been captured and made 


visible-—Elizabeth Ward Perkins. 


279 


CATALOGUE OF JOHN SINGER SARGENT 


MRS. JOHN L. GARDNER Gardner collection, Fenway Court 


A sketch of the courtyard of Mrs. Gardner’s house, in which the figure of 
the owner was introduced. The features are unfinished. 


SKETCH OF HORSES Gardner collection, Fenway Court 
Painted at Jerusalem, in 1905. 


FUMEE D’AMBRE-GRIS Gardner collection, Fenway Court 


Painted in Tangier, in 1880. The original sketch for the picture shown in 
the Paris Salon of 1880. It represents the hooded figure of a girl standing 
on a rug under a Moorish arch, against a light gray background. 


THE BRIDGE, VENICE Gardner collection, Fenway Court 
THE BYWAY, VENICE Gardner collection, Fenway Court 
THE PALACE STEPS Gardner collection, Fenway Court 
CAMP FIRE Fogg Art Museum, Harvard University 


Exhibited at Pittsburgh, 1917; at Cleveland, 1917; at Toledo, 1918; at 
Detroit, 1918; at Minneapolis, 1918; at Milwaukee, 1918; at St. Louis, 
1918; at Rochester, 1918; at Boston, 1921; at Paris, 1923. 

Perhaps as masterly as any watercolor by Mr. Sargent in existence. ... The 
absolute justice of his observation, the perfection of his method, and the 
completeness of the impression . . . go to the making of a masterpiece. 


W.H. D. 


Painted at the camp on the shore of Lake O’Hara in the Canadian Rockies, 
1916. 


VENETIAN INTERIOR John G. Johnson collection 


A boy with a deep blue drapery hanging over his right shoulder sits in a 
lounging position in the center of the composition, his left elbow resting , 
on a table. On the other side of the table a gondolier in a white jumper 
sits reading a newspaper. A blue and gray pitcher and a tumbler are beside 
him. Against the back wall of the room stands a dresser on which are 
pitchers, plates and bowls. Above on a shelf is a row of bottles. A lamp 
hangs from the ceiling. 


280 





Copyrighted, 1924, Grand Central Art Galleries, New York 


THE SIMPLON 
[ Glacier Streams | 


Collection of Mrs. J. Montgomery Sears, Boston 


ory 





OIL PAINTINGS, STUDIES AND SKETCHES 


IN THE MAINE WOODS Mrs. J. Montgomery Sears collection 
Exhibited at Paris, 1923. 


A landscape with pine trees, rocks, and dead timber in a tangled fore- 
ground. Glimpse of a gray sky. Painted in the Maine woods. 


HARBOR IN SPAIN Mrs. J. Montgomery Sears collection 


A picturesque harbor scene, painted in Spain, with a mediaeval fortress at 
the right, and a lighthouse. There is a figure in the foreground. 


SKETCH Mrs. J. Montgomery Sears collection 


Smallish sketch of a marble vase in an Italian garden. Inscribed. 


THE LOOKING-GLASS Charles Deering collection 
Exhibited at Copley Gallery, Boston, 1917; at Boston Art Club, 1921. 


CAMP FIRE Mrs. Brandegee collection 
Exhibited at Copley Gallery, Boston, 1917; at Paris, 1923. 


BEACH Mrs. Brandegee collection 
Exhibited at Copley Gallery, Boston, 1917. 


THE MIST Mrs. J.D. Blanchard collection 
Exhibited at Grand Central Galleries, New York, 1924. 


LAKE LOUISE 
Exhibited at thirty-first exhibition, New York Watercolor Club, 1920— 
1927. 

SARGENT’S CAMP 


Exhibited at thirty-first exhibition, New York Watercolor Club, 1920- 
1921. 


Hie GIUDECCA Gardner collection, Fenway Court 
Exhibited at Royal Society of Painters in Watercolors, London, 1916. 


fea bED OF THE DORA AT PURTUD 
Exhibited at Societa degli Acquerellisti Lombardi, Milan, 1916. 


281 


CATALOGUE OF JOHN SINGER SARGENT 


PORTRAIT OF RAFFAELLE 
Exhibited at Societa degli Acquerellisti Lombardi, Milan, 1916. 


COPY AFTER VAN, DYCK 
Exhibited at Carfax Gallery, London, 1908. 


THE MOTHER Bohemian Club, San Francisco 
Exhibited at Pittsburgh, Cleveland, Toledo, Detroit, Minneapolis, Mil- 
waukee, St. Louis, Rochester, 1917-1918. 

THE FOUNTAIN 
Exhibited at Royal Society of Painters in Watercolors, London, 1913. 


IN TYROL 
Exhibited at Royal Society of Painters in Watercolors, London, 1915. 


BOATS ON THE LAKE OF GARDA 


SHIPPING 
Exhibited at Carfax Gallery, London, 1908. 


THE DOGES’ PALACE 
Exhibited at Carfax Gallery, London, 1908. 


STUDY FOR LAKE O'HARA Edward W. Forbes collection 


Exhibited at Pittsburgh, 1917; at Cleveland, 1917; at Toledo, 1918; at 
Detroit, 1918; at Minneapolis, 1918; at Milwaukee, 1918; at St. Louis, 
1918; at Rochester, 1918; at Boston, 1921; at Paris, 1923. 

Study for the large picture of Lake O’Hara in the Fogg Art Museum of 
Harvard University. 


NIAGARA FALLS Fairchild collection 
Exhibited at Copley Gallery, Boston, 1917. 


VENETIAN STREET SCENE 


The Grand Canal, with a long curving vista of palatial facades at the 
right. Three or four gondolas and boats moored to posts in the foreground. 


282 


OIL PAINTINGS, STUDIES AND SKETCHES 


In the two nearest craft are men, one of them lying down, the other 
sitting and apparently waiting for a passenger. 


ON THE SOMME Imperial War Museum, London 
Exhibited at Boston Art Club, 1921; at exhibition of American Art, 
Paris, 1923. 


SCOTS GREYS | Imperial War Museum, London 
Exhibited at exhibition of American Art in aid of the French Red Cross, 
Paris, 1923. 


WRECKED TANK Imperial War Museum, London 


Exhibited at exhibition of American Art in aid of the French Red Cross, 
Paris, 1923. 


A DUGOUT Imperial War Museum, London 


Exhibited at exhibition of American Art in aid of the French Red Cross, 
Paris, 1923. 


WILL NOT FLY Imperial War Museum, London 


Exhibited at exhibition of American Art in aid of the French Red Cross, 
Paris, 1923. 


HUT IN A STREET IN ARRAS Imperial War Museum, London 


Exhibited at exhibition of American Art in aid of the French Red Cross, 
Paris, 1923. 


A GLACIER ; Fogg Art Museum, Harvard University 


Exhibited at Boston Art Club, 1921; at exhibition of American Art in 
aid of the French Red Cross, Paris, 1923. 


BYFIELD BEACH Dwight Blaney collection 


Exhibited at exhibition in aid of the French Red Cross, Paris, 1923; at 
St. Botolph Club, Boston, 1922. 


THE OLD WHARF Dwight Blaney collection 


Exhibited at exhibition in aid of the French Red Cross, Paris, 1923; at 
St. Botolph Club, Boston, 1922. 


283 


CATALOGUE OF JOHN SINGER SARGENT 


FLORIDA George R. Agassiz collection 
Exhibited at Boston, 1921; at Paris, 1923. 


DEERING GARDEN, FLORIDA George R. A gassiz collection 
Exhibited at Boston, 1921 and 1922; at Paris, 1923. 


TARPON George R. A gassiz collection 
Exhibited at Boston, 1921 and 1922; at Paris, 1923. 


FISH NETS . George R. Agassiz collection 
Exhibited at Boston, 1922; at Paris, 1923. 


WHARF AND BOATS, FLORIDA George R. Agassiz collection 
Exhibited at Boston, 1922; at Paris, 1923. 


SHAVING IN THE OPEN Charles W. Deering collection 
Exhibited at Paris, 1923. 


SPANISH BOYS AT PLAY Mrs.J. Montgomery Sears collection 
Exhibited at Paris, 1923. 


LA SIESTE Miss Sar gent’s collection 
Exhibited at Paris, 1923. 


EN GONDOLE W. de Glehn collection 
Exhibited at Paris, 1923. 


PALAZZO GRIMANI Bruce Richmond collection 
Exhibited at Paris, 1923. 


LA GIUDECCA Bruce Richmond collection 
Exhibited at Paris, 1923. 


FRESH SNOW Mrs. J. D. Cameron Bradley collection 
Exhibited at Boston, 1921; at Paris, 1923. 


SHOEING OXEN AT SIENA 
Exhibited at New English Art Club, London, 1911. 


284 


OIL PAINTINGS, STUDIES AND SKETCHES 


MOUNTAIN LAKE 
Exhibited at New English Art Club, London, 1911. 


SUMMER 
Exhibited at New English Art Club, London, 1911. 


A SUMMER MORNING 
Exhibited at New English Art Club, London, 1911. 


MISS LOUISA LORING 


IN AUSTRIAN TYROL Cleveland Museum of Art 
WOODSHEDS, TYROL Mrs. L.L. Coburn collection 
WORKMEN AT CARRARA Mrs. L.L. Coburn collection 
OLIVE TREES, CORFU Mrs. L.L. Coburn collection 


SUMMER TIME 
Exhibited at New English Art Club, London, 1911. 


FALBALAS 
Exhibited at New English Art Club, London, 1912. 


WHARF AT IRONBOUND ISLAND | Dr.John W. Elliot collection 
Exhibited at Boston, 1922; at Paris, 1923. 


A ARANJUEZ 
Exhibited at Paris, 1923. 


PORTRAIT OF MRS. WILLIAM JAMES William James collection 
Exhibited at Boston, 1922; at Paris, 1923. 


REAR ORLICO, THE WHITE HOUSE 


Sketch of the tall semicircular Ionic portico forming the chief external 
feature of the south side of the Presidential Mansion at Washington. 


285 


CATALOGUE OF JOHN SINGER SARGENT 


CAMP IN THE ROCKIES Gardner collection, Fenway Court 


A FLORENTINE NOCTURNE 
Exhibited at New English Art Club, London, 1910. 


The romantic loveliness of a Florentine Nocturne, with an archway and 
column of the Loggia dei Lanzi, and Cellini’s bronze statue of Perseus 
with the head of Medusa, projected against the darkness of a starlight 
night—a marvelous feat of foreshortening.—Philadelphia Item. 


FLANNELS 
Exhibited at New English Art Club, London, 1910. 


ON THE GIUDECCA 
Exhibited at New English Art Club, London, rg1o. 


A MORAINE 
Exhibited at New English Art Club, London, 1910. 


“The desolate beauty of a gray and blue moraine among the Alpine 
snows.” 


DUBLIN LAKE Dr.John W. Elliot collection 
Exhibited at Boston, 1922; at Paris, 1923. 


THE BEACH Richard Walden Hale collection 
Exhibited at Boston, 1922. 


THE PIAZZA Dwight Blaney collection 
Exhibited at Boston, 1922. 


NIAGARA Dr.John W. Elliot collection 
Exhibited at Boston, 1922. 


FOUNTAIN AT POCANTICO HILLS St. Botolph Club, Boston 
Exhibited at Boston, 1922. 


INTERIOR OF CHURCH AT CORDOVA C.M. Loe ffer collection 
Exhibited at Boston, 1922. 


286 


OIL PAINTINGS, STUDIES AND SKETCHES 
SKETCH 
Exhibited at New English Art Club, London, 1904. 


WADY-EL-NAR 
Exhibited at New English Art Club, London, 1906. 


SPANISH STABLE 
Exhibited at New English Art Club, London, 1905. 


NOM NONENSE 
Exhibited at New English Art Club, London, 1905. 


A VENETIAN TAVERN 
Exhibited at New English Art Club, London, 1905. 


THE MORAINE 
Exhibited at New English Art Club, London, 1907. 


PIAZZA NOVANA 
Exhibited at New English Art Club, London, 1907; at Paris, 1923. 


VILLA DI PAPA GIULIO 
Exhibited at New English Art Club, London, 1908. 


IN THE SOUTH 
Exhibited at New English Art Club, London, 1909. 


THE BLACK BROOK 
Exhibited at New English Art Club, London, 1909. 


UNDER THE OLIVES 
Exhibited at New English Art Club, London, 1909. 


THE RENDEZVOUS 
Exhibited at Christie’s, London, 1924; at Copley Gallery, Boston, 1924. 


287 


CATALOGUE OF JOHN SINGER SARGENT 
Upright composition, 21 x 16 inches. One figure in the foreground, a 
young woman in white, standing, leaning against the trunk of a birch tree, 
waiting for somebody. She wears a wide-brimmed straw hat which casts a 
faint shadow over the upper part of her fair face. Her arms and hands are 


concealed under a white wrap. Several birch trees on a slope in the 
background. 


STUDY OF A MAN 

MRS. ASQUITH 

BRIDGE AND CAMPANILE, VENICE 

THE PORTAL, SAN GIORGIO MAGGIORE, VENICE 
TUNIS 

STEAMSHIP ‘TRACK 

HEAD OF ARTIST’S SISTER 

ARABS AT REST 

OLD BOAT STRANDED 

ROAD IN THE SOUTH 


MAN SEATED BY A STREAM 


In the foreground a man in a felt hat, white shirt and dark trousers, sits 
on the bank of a rushing stream, idly gazing at the rapids dashing over the 
rocks. 1912. 


DRAWINGS 


MADAME GAUTREAU 


1884. Exhibited at Copley Hall, Boston, 1899. A study of the piquant 
profile of Madame Gautreau, the famous Parisian beauty. Reproduced in 
Gazette des Beaux-Arts, June, 1884. 


288 


‘Gg ‘uorsurysv yy “4p fo S4a1]VD 4aarg ‘agniysuy uvimosymmy yt fo hsazinog 


VIQDO0O1 AHL NI ESvuay aad 





+t 





OIL PAINTINGS, STUDIES AND SKETCHES 


MRS. ALICE MEYNELL 
A pencil drawing . . . of Mrs. Meynell, friend of Ruskin, and intelli- 


gent appreciator of the present painter, is of a fineness and interest that 
captivate.—Frank Fowler. 


EDWIN A. ABBEY 


1880. Charcoal portrait made in Paris. Reproduced in E. V. Lucas’s biog- 
raphy of Abbey. 


MRS. GEORGE CORNWALLIS-WEST 


A vignette of the head only, the shoulders and the ruff about the neck 
being sketched in with a few summary strokes of the pencil. A single firm 
line defines the contour of cheek and jaw. Made in one sitting. 


LADY RANDOLPH CHURCHILL 


Exhibited at Royal Society of Portrait Painters, Grafton Galleries, 
London, 1915. 


LADY ISLINGTON 
Exhibited at Royal Society of Portrait Painters, London, 1922. 


THE HON. JOAN DICKSON-POYNEDER 


Daughter of Lord and Lady Islington. Exhibited at Royal Society of 
Portrait Painters, London, 1922. 


MASTER GEORGE LEWIS 
Exhibited at Royal Society of Portrait Painters, London, 1916. 


LADY DIANA MANNERS 
Exhibited at Royal Society of Portrait Painters, London, 1916. 


LADY CYNTHIA MOSLEY 


Daughter of Marquess Curzon of Kedleston. Exhibited at Grafton Gal- 
leries, London, 1922. 


LADY RICHIE 
Exhibited at Royal Society of Portrait Painters, London, 1916. 


289 


CATALOGUE OF JOHN SINGER SARGENT 
EARL OF ROSSLYN 
HERBERT BEERBOHM TREE 


MISS VIOLET TREE 
Exhibited at Royal Society of Portrait Painters, London, 1916. 


EMILE VERHAEREN 


CHRISTIAN DEWET 
Exhibited at Royal Society of Portrait Painters, London, 1916. 


PROFESSOR CHARLES S. SARGENT 
Exhibited at Boston Art Museum, 1919. 


MADAME EVA GAUTHIER 


Charcoal study of the interesting profile of a leading exponent of the new 
spirit in music. 


DR. DENMAN W. ROSS Boston Art Museum 
DR. WILLIAM S. BIGELOW Boston Art Museum 


EARL SPENCER, K.G. 


Exhibited at Royal Society of Portrait Painters, Grafton Galleries, 
London, 1916. 


GEORGE MEREDITH 


Exhibited at Royal Society of Portrait Painters, Grafton Galleries, 
London, 1916; at Boston, 1899. 


CAROLUS DURAN Dr. Huebsch collection ° 
1879. Exhibited at New York, 1911. Pen-and-ink sketch made in Paris. 


A care-free, student-like note, drawn on common white note paper, it 
shows in every stroke and sensitive line the master’s touch. 


BRIGADIER-GENERAL G. H. FOWKE 


Exhibited at Fine Art Society’s exhibition of portraits of British Com- 
manders, London, 1915. 


290 


OIL PAINTINGS, STUDIES AND SKETCHES 
MRS. RAY ATHERTON 
ROBERT APTHORP BOIT 
JAMES D. C. BRADLEE 
MISS HELEN CASE 
MRS. ROBERT JONES CLARK 
MRS. RICHARD I. CRANE 
MR. CUTLER 
MRS. F. GORDON DEXTER 
MISS DUNHAM 
MISS SALLY FAIRCHILD 
CHARLES FLEISCHER 
MRS. LUCIA FULLER 
ROBERT GRANT, JR. 


DAVID PLAYING BEFORE SAUL 
Illustration. Exhibited at Copley Hall, Boston, 1899. 


JOSEPH B. WARNER 

MRS. WILLIAM PHILLIPS 

MISS ELISE AMES 

MRS. R. D. SEARS 

MISS MIRIAM SEARS 

MRS. J. D. CAMERON BRADLEY 
MRS. JOHN S. LAWRENCE 


291 


CATALOGUE OF JOHN SINGER SARGENT 


HON. JOSEPH H. CHOATE 
United States Ambassador to Great Britain, 1899-1905. 


MISS MABEL CHOATE 

MISS MARION SPRAGUE 

MISS ELEANOR SPRAGUE 
MRS. HARRIS LIVERMORE 
MAJOR HENRY L. HIGGINSON 
MR. H. L. HIGGINSON, 2nd 


HON. W. CAMERON FORBES 
Governor-General of Philippine Islands, 1909-1913. 


FREDERICK H. PRINCE, JR. 
MRS. HAROLD PEABODY 
MRS. GEORGE R. AGASSIZ 
JOHN ELLIOT 


HON. GEORGE VON L. MEYER 


United States Ambassador to Italy, 1900-1905; to Russia, 1905-1907; 
Postmaster-General, 1907-1909; Secretary of the Navy, 1909-1913. 


RIGHT REV. WILLIAM LAWRENCE 
Bishop of Massachusetts. 


JUDGE ROBERT GRANT 
Judge of the Probate Court and Court of Insolvency for Suffolk County. 
Author of “The Chippendales,” and other novels. 


ALEXANDER COCHRANE 


292 


OIL PAINTINGS, STUDIES AND SKETCHES 


mo. A, PORTER 


Eminent surgeon and professor of surgery in the Harvard Medical School. 
MRS. RICHARD W. HALE 
MRS, ALEXANDER H. HIGGINSON 
FRONTISPIECE FOR “THE STORY OF NEDDA” 
CRUCIFIXION 


PORTRAIT SKETCH 


Wash drawing of a dark-haired lady; half-length; seated; full front; 
with strong light on face. Her elbows rest on a table, and the right hand 
is held to her throat, the arm being sharply foreshortened. 


esPUDyY FOR A PORTRAIT 


Crayon drawing of the head of a lady; full front; very summarily 
blocked in. 


TWENTY-ONE STUDIES 
Made for the mural paintings “Entering the War” and “Death and 
Victory,” in Widener Library, Harvard University, the first permanent 
memorial erected at the university to the Harvard men who fought and 
died in the World War. Presented by the artist to the Fogg Art Museum 
of Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass., 1923. 


PORTRAIT 


Exhibited at eleventh annual exhibition of watercolors, pastels and draw- 
ings, Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts and Philadelphia Watercolor 
Club, 1913. 


ELEONORA DUSE Mr. and Mrs. Francis Neilson collection 
Exhibited at Art Institute of Chicago, 1924. 


MISS ETHEL M. SMYTH 


Sketch made while Miss Smyth was singing at the piano. She is the com- 
poser of the opera “Der Wald,” which was produced at the Metropolitan 
Opera House, New York. 


293 


CATALOGUE OF JOHN SINGER SARGENT 


MISS ETHEL BARRYMORE 
Exhibited at New York, 1909; at Boston, 1917. 
Eminent actress and member of a noted American theatrical family. 


‘There is something flower-like about the beauty of this face, and one is 
pretty sure that Sargent himself felt it so, for he has emphasized the stem- 
like character of the neck.—Charles H. Caffin. 


HENRY JAMES 


Profile. Inscribed, ‘“To my friend Henry James,” and signed. This draw- 
ing antedates the painted portrait in the National Portrait Gallery, London. 


THE DUKE OF YORK 


Presented to the Duchess of York as a wedding gift by Hon. George 
Harvey, late United States Ambassador to the Court of St. James. 


THE DUCHESS OF YORK 


Presented to the Duchess of York as a wedding gift by Prince Paul of 
Serbia. 


MRS. REGINALD BROOKS 
Exhibited at New York, 1909. 


It was the beauty of the face that attracted him, and upon the rendering of 
this he has expended his chief thought.—Charles H. Caffin. 


SKETCH FOR A PORDRAIT 
Full-length; seated; a young lady holding in one hand an open fan up to 
her chin; the other hand is placed on the seat at her left. 


MOUNTAIN LAKE, TYROL 


MRS. WALDORF ASTOR 
Exhibited at New York, 1909. 


It is so fresh, so alert, with the springiness of youth. And in the interpreta- 
tion of these qualities, the broad soft collar, exposing the slender neck, and 
the flame-like ardor of the hair have been made to play their part. How 
reposeful is the one; the other, how spirited! —Charles H. Caffin. 


294 





Copyrighted, 1924, Grand Central Art Galleries, New York 


THE MASTER AND HIS PUPILS 


Courtesy of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston 





OIL PAINTINGS, STUDIES AND SKETCHES 


MISS SUSAN STRONG 


Charcoal sketch portrait of the daughter of the late Demas Strong of 
Brooklyn. She appeared in grand opera at the old Academy of Music, New 
York, with Mapleson’s company, and later at the Metropolitan Opera 
House, during the Conried régime. 


MRS. JOHN WARD 
Exhibited at New York, 1909. 


Here the artist’s impressionistic treatment of details is seen at its happiest. 
Nothing is insisted upon except the fascination of the whole effect, which 
is precisely the impression produced in actual life by a well dressed woman. 


Charles H. Caffin. 
VERNON LEE 
Exhibited at Sargent loan exhibition, Copley Hall, Boston, 1899. 


M. GABRIEL FAUVE 
Exhibited at Sargent loan exhibition, Copley Hall, Boston, 1899. 


DAVID IN THE WILDERNESS 
Illustration. Exhibited at Sargent loan exhibition, Copley Hall, Boston, 
1899. 


DAVID AND JONATHAN 
Illustration. Exhibited at Sargent loan exhibition, Copley Hall, Boston, 
1899. 


DAVID ENTERING SAUL’S CAMP 
Illustration. Exhibited at Sargent loan exhibition, Copley Hall, Boston, 
1899. 


MADAME JUDITH GAUTIER 
Exhibited at Sargent loan exhibition, Copley Hall, Boston, 1899. 


PROFILE 
Exhibited at Sargent loan exhibition, Copley Hall, Boston, 1899. 


CARMENCITA 
Exhibited at Sargent loan exhibition, Copley Hall, Boston, 1899. 


295 


CATALOGUE OF JOHN SINGER SARGENT 


SPANISH SKETCHES 
Exhibited at Sargent loan exhibition, Copley Hall, Boston, 1899. 


STUDIES FOR HEADS IN A PICTURE 
Exhibited at Sargent loan exhibition, Copley Hall, Boston, 1899. 


CHARCOAL STUDY OF A HEAD 
Exhibited at Sargent loan exhibition, Copley Hall, Boston, 1899. 


FRANCIS C. GRAY 
MORRIS GRAY 

EDWIN F. GREENE 
JOHN GARDNER GREENE 


HON. GEORGE HARVEY 
United States Ambassador to England. 


ALEXANDER HENRY HIGGINSON 
MRS. JAMES LAWRENCE 
COLONEL THOMAS L. LIVERMORE 


COLONEL THOMAS L. LIVERMORE 


A pencil head in outline. 


ABBOTT LAWRENCE LOWELL 
President of Harvard University. 


GUY LOWELL 
GORDON MEANS 
HENRY PRATT McKEAN 


LIEUTENANT QUINCY ADAMS SHAW McKEAN 
296 


OIL PAINTINGS, STUDIES AND SKETCHES 
KEITH McLEOD 
MRS. JOHN MILLET 


TEN CHARCOAL STUDIES OF DRAPERY 
Exhibited at Sargent loan exhibition, Copley Hall, Boston, 1899. 


Bit ALEO 
Pen-and-ink study. 


MISS HUXLEY 


MARTIN BIRNBAUM 


Author of “Introductions.”’ 


TWO STUDIES FROM LIFE 


Drawings made for the mural decorations in the rotunda of the Boston Art 
Museum. 


MARSHALL FIELD 
Grandson of the founder of the great department store in Chicago. 


CHARLES K. BOLTON 


Librarian of Boston Athenaeum; instructor in Simmons College; author. 


FREDERICK OSBORN 

MISS BELLE HUNT 

MISS GRACE ELLISON 

MRS. GURNEE MUNN 

MISS KATHLEEN ROTCH 

MRS. DANIELSON 

MISS ANNA R. CASE 

MISS ELIZABETH BURGESS 
297 


CATALOGUE OF JOHN SINGER SARGENT 


MRS. J. E. ZANETTI 

MRS. JOSEPH E. WILLARD 
MRS. BAYARD THAYER 
MISS CONSTANCE THAYER 
EUGENE THAYER 
NATHANIEL THAYER 

MISS RUTH THAYER 


WILLIAM ROSCOE THAYER 


Late editor of Harvard Graduates Magazine; author of important books 
on the history of Italy. 


MRS. CHARLES AMORY 


PROFESSOR KIRSOPP LAKE 
Theologian, author, and professor in the Harvard Divinity School. 


COLONEL ARTHUR WOODS 
Former Police Commissioner of the City of New York. 


MRS. ARTHUR WOODS 
PERCY CHUBB 

MRS. CLARENCE HAY 
HAROLD I. PRATT 

MRS. HAROLD I. PRATT 
HAROLD TOPRA TL aj ke 


LIEUTENANT VAUGHAN 
298 


OIL PAINTINGS, STUDIES AND SKETCHES 


DR. FREDERICK C. SHATTUCK 


Eminent physician; many years of the faculty, Harvard Medical School; 
consulting physician, Massachusetts General Hospital. 


LIEUTENANT LINCOLN MACVEAGH 
PAUL HAMMOND 


MRS. WILLIAM ELLERY 
HALIBURTON FALES 

MISS BRADY 

MRS. LYDIG HOYT 

MRS. OLIVER AMES. 

LUKE VINCENT LOCKWOOD 


Lawyer, author, antiquarian. 
MRS. CHARLES G. LORING 
MRS. R. M. BISSELL 
JOHN J. EMERY 
MRS. GEORGE DRAPER 
MISS EMILY WINTHROP 
MISS KATE WINTHROP 
MRS. JOHN SANFORD 
MRS. REGINALD BOARDMAN 
MISS LOVERING 
MRS. F. $. MOSELEY 
MRS. G. A. COCHRANE 

299 


CATALOGUE OF JOHN SINGER SARGENT 
MRS. GUY CURRIER 
SENATOR DU PONT 
MISS POLLY DU PONT 
P25. POND 
MRS. W. K. DU PONT 
MRS. ROGER WOLCOTT 
ALEXANDER FORBES 


REV. ENDICOTT PEABODY 
Head Master of Groton School. 


MRS. WILLIAM JAMES, SR. 
MRS. WORTHAN JAMES 

F. W. ALLEN 

MRS. LEATHERBEE 
HERBERT DUPUY 

ARTHUR BLAKE 

MRS. BAYARD TUCKERMAN 


COMMANDER RUFUS F. ZOGBAUM 


Artist and author, specializing in military and naval subjects. 
JOHN W. CUMMINGS 
H. 8. RUSSELL 


JOHN BARRYMORE 


Actor; member of noted theatrical family; leading man in motion 
) > g 
pictures. 


300 





MOUNTAIN SHEEPFOLD, TYROL 
Collection of Mr. Lewis Cass Ledyard, New York 


OIL PAINTINGS, STUDIES AND SKETCHES 
PROFESSOR JOHN P. LOWELL 
LIEUTENANT GRAY 


GENERAL DWIGHT F. DAVIS 
Assistant Secretary of War. 


LIEUTENANT McKEAN 

MRS. CHARLES A. MUNN, JR. 
RICHARD HALE 

MRS. J. NICHOLAS BROWN 
MRS. J. L. SALTONSTALL 
PEYTON VAN RENSSELAER 


J. S. RUNNELLS 


Lawyer; chairman board of directors of The Pullman Company. 
H. B. SHARPE 
MRS. HAROLD J. COOLIDGE 
MRS. HOWARD HEINZ 
LOUIS A. FROTHINGHAM 
MISS AGNES CLARK 
MISS HELEN CLARK 
MISS MARY CLARK 
MISS PATRICIA CLARK 


JAMES FORD RHODES 


Historian. 


301 


CATALOGUE OF JOHN SINGER SARGENT 


MRS. ARTURO DE HERON 
MRS. JOHN S. BRAUN 

MRS. CHARLES R. CRANE 
RODMAN E. GRISCOM 
EDWIN HAMLIN 

QUINCY A. SHAW, JR. 

JAMES J. STORROW 

MRS. BAYARD WARREN 
RALPH BRADLEY 

CHARLES ALEXANDER MUNN 
HENRY NIEDERAUER 

MRS. WALTER H. PAGE 
MISS ELIZABETH M. PAINE 
MISS RUTH PAINE 

MISS AMY PETERS 

MISS JANE PETERS 
DOCTOR JOHN C. PHILLIPS 
MRS. LEWIS NILES ROBERTS 
PHILLIPS BROOKS ROBINSON 
EDWARD SILSBEE 
MOORFIELD STOREY 

MRS. ROGER D. SWAIM 


302 


Bodleian Library, Oxford 


OIL PAINTINGS, STUDIES AND SKETCHES 
MRS. JOHN ELIOT THAYER 
MISS MABEL BAYARD THAYER 
BAYARD TUCKERMAN 
SAMUEL VAUGHN 


FEMALE NUDE SEATED ON A LOW BENCH 
Cleveland Museum of Art 


MRS. RALPH BRADLEY 

MRS. HIGGINSON 

MRS. EDWARD D. BRANDEGEE 
MISS BRANDEGEE 

LANGDON BRANDEGEE 

CAPTAIN KERMIT ROOSEVELT 
MRS. KERMIT ROOSEVELT 

MRS. THEODORE ROOSEVELT, SR. 
MRS. GEORGE H. TIMMINS 
CHARLES M. LOEFFLER 

MRS. EDWIN FARNUM GREENE AND SON 


DR. HARVEY W. CUSHING 


Surgeon; professor in Harvard Medical School. 


THOMAS BARBOUR 
Naturalist. 


MRS. THOMAS BARBOUR 


Bes 


CATALOGUE OF JOHN SINGER SARGENT 
MR. BARBOUR’S DAUGHTER 
MR. BARBOUR’S SON 
FREDERICK H. PRINCE 
MRS. J. NEWTON SMITH 
MRS. THEODORE FROTHINGHAM, JR. 
ENSIGN C. LORING 
J. CHILDS 
MR. BURDEN 
MR. CUTTING 
GEORGE R. WHITE 


He left $5,000,000 to the people of Boston, and a bronze memorial to him 
by Daniel C. French was unveiled in the Public Garden in 1924. 


WILLIAM A. REED, JR. 
MRS. WILLIAM A. REED, JR. 
JOHN L. LYMAN 

RONALD T. LYMAN 

MRS. RONALD T. LYMAN 
MISS ABBY ROCKEFELLER 
F. W. FABYAN, JR. 


THOMAS WHITTEMORE 
Archaeologist. 


MOREAU DELANO 
304 


OIL PAINTINGS, STUDIES AND SKETCHES 


WILLIAM ADAMS DELANO 
Architect; Professor of Design, Columbia University. 


R. M. GRANT 

MRS. MARY SARGENT POTTER 

MISS NATHALIE POTTER 

MRS. WILLIAM PARKER STRAW 
MISS ALICE SARGENT 

MRS. CHARLES S. SARGENT 

MRS. CHARLES S. SARGENT, JR. 

MRS. ANDREW ROBESON SARGENT 
RONALD TREE 

MRS. A. M. PATTERSON 

MRS. Rk. D, PATTERSON 

MRS. R. D. PATTERSON’S DAUGHTER 
MADAME EVA GAUTHIER (FULL FRONT) 
MR. HORATIO NELSON SLATER 
MRS. HORATIO NELSON SLATER 
MISS SLATER 

MRS. PIERPONT L. STACKPOLE 


LADY IN A HAMMOCK J.D. Batchelder collection 
A slight monochrome sketch, swiftly executed, with the figure of the lady 
sharply foreshortened. 


305 


CATALOGUE OF JOHN SINGER SARGENT 


MAJOR-GENERAL JOHN F. O’RYAN 


Commander of the Twenty-Seventh Division, American Expeditionary 
Force, 1917-1918. Inscribed: “To Major-General O’Ryan. John S, Sar- 


gent. Sept. Ist, 1918. Somewhere in France.” 


THE DANCE 


This sketch was made at a meeting of the Council of the Royal Academy 
from memories of Carpeaux’s sculpture on the facade of the Paris Opera 
House. 


JOHN BARRYMORE AS HAMLET 


Sketch. Inscribed: ““To my friend John Barrymore. John S. Sargent, 
1923.” 


LADY GERARD LOWTHER 
MISS RUTH DRAPER 

MRS. GRAFTON W. MINOT 
EARL GREY 

GENERAL RONALD STORRS 


SIR W. B. RICHMOND, K.C.B., R.A. 
Exhibited at Royal Society of Portrait Painters, London, 1916. 


PERCY GRAINGER 
TWO STUDIES FOR “CARNATION, LILY, LILY, ROSE” 
EDWIN SIBLEY WEBSTER 
MRS. EDWIN SIBLEY WEBSTER 
BENJAMIN SUMNER WELLES 
MRS. BENJAMIN SUMNER WELLES 
HERVEY WETZEL 
306 


OIL PAINTINGS, STUDIES AND SKETCHES 
G. MARSTON WHITIN 
JOSEPH E. WIDENER 


MASTER ANTHONY ASQUITH 
Exhibited at Royal Society of Portrait Painters, London, 1916. 


GUY BENSON 
Exhibited at Royal Society of Portrait Painters, London, 1916. 


CAPTAIN REX BENSON 
Exhibited at Royal Society of Portrait Painters, London, 1916. 


BARONESS BONDE 


MRS. CHARLES HUNTER 
Exhibited at Royal Society of Portrait Painters, London, 1916. 


MRS. THOMAS LINCOLN MANSON 
Mrs. K. Van Rensselaer collection 


Exhibited at Grand Central Galleries, New York, 1925. 


397 




















Ph 
ey 
y 
4 


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LAKE O’HARA 


Courtesy of Fogg Art Museum, Harvard University 





PART III 
BIBLIOGRAPHY 





BIBLIOGRAPHY 


Addison, Julia de Wolf. “The Boston 
Museum of Fine Arts.” Boston: 1910. 
Pp. 55-56. | 

Anonymous. “The Art of the Age.” Pear- 
sows Magazine, April, 1901. 

Anonymous. Article in Review of Reviews 
for June, 1894. 

Anonymous, “Letters to Living Artists.” 
London: 1891. Pp. 119-131. 

Anonymous. “Our Foremost Portrait 
Painter.” Mumnsey’s Magazine, August, 
1903. Pp. 686-689. 

Anonymous. “Sargent’s Portrait of Presi- 
dent Eliot.” Harvard Graduate’ Mag- 
azine, December, 1907. Pp. 241-244. 

Anonymous. “Some Watercolors by John 
S. Sargent in the Museum of Fine Arts, 
Boston.” Art and Progress, October, 
1912. 

Anonymous. “The Work of Sargent.” 
Critic, October, 1905. Pp. 326-327. 

Baldry, Alfred L. “The Art of John 
Singer Sargent, R.A.” Studio, Vol. 19, 
1900. Pp. 3-21 and 107-119. 

Baxter, Sylvester. “Handbook of the Bos- 
ton Public Library.” Boston: 1916. 

Berry, Rose V. S. “John Singer Sargent: 
Some of His American Work.” Art and 
Archaeology, September, 1924. Pp. 83— 
PE, 

Blackall, C. H. “Sargent Decorations in 
the Boston Museum of Fine Arts.” 
American Architect and Architectural 
Review, March 29, 1922. 

Brinton, Christian. “Modern Artists.” 
New York: 1908. 

Brinton, Christian. “Sargent and His Art.” 


Munsey’s Magazine, December, 1906. 

Bryant, Lorinda Munson. ‘American Pic- 
tures and Their Painters.” New York: 
1917. Pp. 157-163. 

Bulletins of the Metropolitan Museum of 
Art, New York; Museum of Fine Arts, 
Boston; Worcester Art Museum; Art 
Institute of Chicago; Albright Art 
Gallery, Buffalo; etc. 

Caffin, Charles H. “American Masters of 
Painting.” NewYork: 1906. Pp. 5 5-67. 

Caffin, Charles H. “Drawings by John S. 
Sargent.” Metropolitan Magazine, July, 
1909. Pp. 413-418. 

Caffin, Charles H. ‘How to Study Pic- 
tures.” New York: 1905. Pp. 441 ef seq. 

Caffin, Charles H. “The Story of Ameri- 
can Painting.” New York: 1907. Pp. 
245-253 and 320-323. 

Caffin, Charles H. “John S. Sargent, the 
Greatest Contemporary Portrait Paint- 
er.” World’s Work, November, 1903. 
Pp. 4099-4116. 

Catalogue of paintings and sketches by 
John S. Sargent, R.A., exhibited at 
Copley Hall, Boston, 1899, under the 
auspices of the Boston Art Students’ 
Association. 

Catalogues of paintings in the Metropoli- 
tan Museum of Art, New York; Muse- 
um of Fine Arts, Boston; Worcester 
Art Museum; etc. 

Catalogue of a “Retrospective Exhibition 
of Important Works of John Singer 
Sargent.” Grand Central Art Galleries, 
New York, 1924. 

Chard, Cecil. “John S. Sargent, R. A.: 


ane 


BIBLIOGRAPHY 


The Work of a Great Portrait Paint- 
er.” Pall Mall Magazine, June, 1907. 

Coburn, Frederick W. “The Sargent Dec- 
orations in the Boston Public Library.” 
American Magazine of Art, February, 
POL. 

Coburn, Frederick W. “Sargent’s War 
Epic.” American Magazine of Art, Jan- 
uary, 1923. 

Coburn, Frederick W. “John Singer Sar- 
gent is Sphinx of Modern Celebrities.” 
Boston Sunday Herald, June 11, 1922. 

Coffin, William A. “Sargent and His 
Painting.” Century Magazine, June, 
1896. 

Coffin, William A. “The Sargent Loan 
Exhibition in Boston.” New York Suz, 
February 21, 1899. 

Collins, J. P. “Sargent in London: His 
Haunts and Habits.” Boston Tran- 
script, May 2, 1925. 

Cortissoz, Royal. “Art and Common 
Sense.”” New York: 1913. Pp. 219-246. 

Cortissoz, Royal. “John S. Sargent.” Scrib- 
ners Magazine, November, 1903. 

Cortissoz, Royal. “Sargent the Painter of 
Modern Tenseness.” Scribner's Maga- 
zine, March, 1924. Pp. 345-352. 

Cournos, J. “John S. Sargent.” Forum, 
August, 1915. Pp. 232-236. 

Cox, Kenyon. “Old Masters and New.” 
New York: 1905. Pp. 145, 146, 244, 
255-265. 

Cox, Kenyon. “Two Ways of Painting.” 
Scribner’s Magazine, Vol. 52. 

Dixon, Marion Hepworth. “Mr. John S. 
Sargent asa Portrait Painter.” Magazine 
of Art, Vol. 23, 1899. Pp. 112-119. 

Downes, William Howe. ‘“Twelve Great 
Artists.” Boston: 1900. Pp. 165 ef seq. 

Fenollosa, Ernest F. “Mural Paintings 
in the Boston Public Library.” Boston: 
1896. Pp. 19-28. 

Fiske, C. H. “American Painting.” 
Chautauquan, March, 1908. Pp. 81- 
85. 


Fowler, Frank. “The Work of John S. 
Sargent.” Bookman, January, 1904. 
Pp. 537-539. 

Fox, Thomas A. “As Sargent Goes to 
Rest.” Boston J'ramscript, April 24, 
Toes. 

Fyfe, H. H. “Sargent at the Royal Acad- 
emy.” Nineteenth Century, June, 
1901. Pp. 1022-1027. 

Glodt, John T. ‘Les Décorations de Mr. 
Sargent dans la Bibliothéque Publique 
de Boston.” Le Messager Mariste, Vol. 
2; Now? 

Glodt, John T. “Les Prophétes: une série 
de Décorations de Mr. Sargent dans la 
Bibliothéque Publique de Boston.” 
L’Ame de ?Orphelin, Vol. 44, no. I. 

Hartmann, Sadakichi. “A History of 
American Art.” Boston: 1902. Vol. 2. 
Pp. 162, 213-222, 236, 241, 280. 

Hoeber, Arthur. ““The Treasures of the 
Metropolitan Museum of Art.” New 
York: 1899. Pp. 118-120. 

Hurll, Estelle. ‘Portraits and Portrait 
Painters.” Boston: 1907. Pp. 297 et 
5€q. 

Insley, Rebecca. “The Great American 
Painter at Home.” London Chronicle, 
May 16, 1902. 

Isham, Samuel. “History of American 
Painting.” New York: 1905. Pp. 428— 
438. 

James, Henry. “Picture and Text.” New 
York: 1893. Pp. 92-115. 

James, Henry. “John S. Sargent.” Har- 
pers Magazine, 1887. 

Layard, Arthur. “John Singer Sargent.” 
Die Kunst, Vol. 17, pp. 25-33. 

McSpadden, J. W. “Famous Painters of 
America.” New York: 1907. Pp. 275 
et seq. 

Mechlin, Leila. “The Sargent Exhibi- 
tion” (New York, 1924). American 
Magazine of Art, April, 1924. 

Meynell, Alice. “The Work of John S. 
Sargent.” London: 1903. 


312 


BIBLIOGRAPHY 


Mills, Evan. “A Personal Sketch of Mr. 
Sargent.” World’s Work, November, 
1903. Pp. 4116-4118. 

Moore, George. “Modern Painting.” 
London: 1893. Pp. 194-196. 

Muther, Richard. “The History of Mod- 
ern Painting.” New York: 1896. Vol. 
3. Pp. 474-478. 

Phythian, J. E. “Fifty Years of Modern 
Painting.” New York: 1908. Pp. 375 
ét seq. 

Quilter, Harry. “Preferences in Art, Life 
and Literature.” London: 1892. Pp. 
355, 358, 398. 

Ross, Robert. “The Wertheimer Sar- 
gents.” Art Journal, January, 1911. 
Sargent, Emma Worcester. “Epes Sargent 
of Gloucester and His Descendants.” 
With biographical notes by Charles 

Sprague Sargent. Boston: 1924. 

Simpson, Joseph, R. B. A. “The Old 
Masters of the Future.” Weekly Dis- 
patch, London: June, 1923. 

Small, Herbert. “Handbook of the New 
Public Library in Boston.” Boston: 
1895. Pp. 51-62. 

Smith, Preserved. “‘Sargent’s New Mural 
Decorations.” Scribner’s Magazine, 
March, 1922. Pp. 379-384. 

Spanswick, Mable Pearl. “John Singer 


Sargent, His Work in Painting and in 
Mural Decoration.” Manuscript in 
Boston Public Library. 

Starkweather, William. “The Art of John 
S. Sargent.” Mentor, October, 1924. 
Pp. 3-29. 

Teall, Gardiner. “The One Great Pic- 
ture of the War.” Art of the Month, 
1919. 

Tittle, Walter. “My Memories of John 
Sargent.” Illustrated London News, 
April 25, 1925. 

Van Dyke, John C. “American Painting 
and Its Traditions.’ New York: 1919. 
Pp. 243-270. 

Van Dyke, John C. “John S. Sargent, 
Portrait Painter.” Outlook, May 2, 
1903. Pp. 31-39. 

Van Rensselaer, M. G. “John S. Sar- 
gent.” Century Magazine, March, 
1892. P. 798. 

Watson, Forbes. “Sargent, Boston and 
Art.” Arts and Decoration, February, 
1917. 

Watson, Forbes. “John Singer Sargent.” 
Arts, March, 1924. 

Wood, T. Martin. “Sargent.” London: 





Young, Stark. “The Sargent Exhibition.” 
New Republic, March 19, 1924. 


313 

















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